


A Wrench In Fate

by The_Real_Yours_Truly



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Fetish, Monsters, Multi, Multiple Crossovers, Sex, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:35:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 53,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Real_Yours_Truly/pseuds/The_Real_Yours_Truly
Summary: Nothing is ever as it seems, not in the slightest. For some, free will is an illusion, as they are guided by the cards fate has dealt everyone, and their stories are written out in the annuls of history. To live is to follow your own set story, to never deviate from the concrete path life has created for you. Such a thing isn't possible, we are all bound by the chains.However, one managed to snap free from his chains... and he doesn't plan on putting them back on.
Kudos: 1





	1. Intensive Care Unit

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a work in progress, and I have no editor so there may be typos and spelling errors, please don't let that take away from enjoying the story.

The world was vast, but not never ending. It was a floating rock in space that housed the human race, people who throughout the thousands of years of our existence, have gone from using sticks and stone to survive, to using computers and rockets to seek out colonizing space. Earth was truly a marvel of sorts, one I was glad to be a part of.

Even if it felt like it was falling apart day by day.

I was one of those kids that grew up fantasizing about what I wanted to be, something grand and wonderful. The classic backstory to every hero’s tale, right? Well, in my case, I was just a kid from the south, who grew up a rough life before moving out north, then west.

Nothing really extraordinary, in all honesty. 

“Home sweet home, I guess.“ I set down the last box in my new apartment and immediately plopped down on the couch. I let out a sigh and let myself relax after a long and arduous journey west.

The year wasn’t even over yet; only halfway through it and I was incredibly exhausted and stressed to the point nothing felt right anymore. The second it started it’s been nothing but a nonstop rollercoaster of one thing after another that just drained me emotionally, physically, and mentally.

But I was free from things that held me back, free to finally carve my own destiny into the annals of time, what little I had left anyway. I wasn’t dying or anything like that, but I had just turned twenty-two and it just hit me that I haven’t done much with my life.

Then again, who has?

I was getting ahead of myself though.

My apartment wasn’t much, just a small single bedroom I had discovered in this small city out in the forest covered mountains of the midwest. It wasn’t much, but the town had plenty of job openings and the apartment was stupidly cheap, so I could afford it and put money back for my continued journey westward.

I think the strangest thing was that this town had such an old look about it, like it had been stuck in the 80s and 90s and never developed beyond that like most towns and cities did.

It didn’t bother me much, it was just a temporary stop until I was able to get together the money I needed to move further.

A nap honestly sounded like a good idea right now, today had been long and exhausting. I needed the rest before figuring out my gameplan, and heading to my new job in the city. Beforehand though, I made sure my doors were locked and the windows too; while I didn’t exactly expect anyone to try and break into the apartment, I wasn’t one to take many chances.

After I felt comfortable with everything, I sat back down on the couch and tilted my hat down over my face. I didn’t have a bed so the couch was as close to one as I was gonna get, plus it was comfy.

The sirens outside were annoying, but there wasn’t much I could do about that except block it out best as I could. I had noticed a lot of ambulances and cop cars roaming around the whole time I was in the city, but didn’t think much of it.

I never liked the city for these exact reasons, lots of noise and it made me paranoid. I never liked the people either, too many to keep an eye out for and some were out for my wallet. Baltimore was a sore example of why I didn’t like them.

Almost lost my money that day.

But oh well… this city was a new beginning for me, new experiences and a whole new time for me.

I had high hopes that things would go well for me, I had a good feeling, a  _ really _ good feeling that my new life here would be a good one. I just needed to get settled in and figure out what I needed to do.

My phone suddenly rang, forcing me out of my nap. I flicked my cap up and pulled the phone from my pocket. The number wasn’t one I recognized, but I answered it nonetheless.

“Yello?”

_ “Hey, this is Josh from Sam’s Sports. We’re short some staff today and was wondering if you could come in early, we can start your orientation and get you started right away.” _

Seems like every place I went to to work, they were always short someone and needed me to either come in early or pull a double.

The curse of competency.

“Ehh sure, why not?” It would be a decent enough excuse to head outside into the city and check out the sights for myself, see what I was getting myself into. “I’ll be there shortly, you on Warren Street?”

_ “That’s right! Thank you so much, I’ll see you shortly!” _ With that, Josh hung up and I was left alone.

Now I had to head out and spend my third day in this city working, beautiful.

I sighed and got ready regardless. I didn’t have any work uniform to wear so I just wore my typical getup; a black hoodie, some tough jeans, boots, and gathered up my personal effects before heading out.

I exited my apartment and locked the door, before I made my way outside. The only bad thing about the apartment were the hallways being cramped to hell, narrow with uneven floor tiles, and this dark dingy atmosphere that reminded me of a horror game. Even the stairwell was claustrophobic, tight, and the dust and garbage lining the stairs didn’t exactly bode well.

It was no wonder the place was so cheap, the place was almost run down and poorly maintained by the staff, who I’ve yet to see aside from the owner who gave me the key. But it was still a roof over my head, a functioning bathroom, and had working AC and heat.

Once I made it down into the lobby, I found the desk once again abandoned and no one around. I didn’t let it bother me as I ventured out into the streets, where I was greeted with a bustling population on their way to work, home, or out for a walk.

I was almost reminded of Manhattan in a way, with how densely packed it was. Thankfully the roads weren’t too packed, so I could still drive if I had to without being caught in traffic snarls.

I didn’t let it bother me as I continued to the street and to my car.

_ Never thought I’d be working at a sporting goods store, but oh well, just another stepping stone on the road to progress. _

I climbed into my car and settled in before I started it up, and flicked on the radio. I heard static for a bit before the local city station kicked in, and they began prattling on about local sports and happenings in the city and outskirts, mostly stuff that happened in the mountains nearby.

As my car started up and I pulled out onto the road, something in particular caught my attention.

_ “In other news, there is still no further information on the strange sightings of wild animals in the mountains who have been linked to dozens of deaths and injuries that have begun filling The Raccoon General Hospital.” _

“Well damn, that’s fucking...” I blinked when what the man had said suddenly registered in my mind. “...Raccoon?” I hesitantly turned up the radio and listened in further.

_ “At least four more hikers have been recovered from the outskirts of the Arklay Mountains, who have been mauled and left heavily injured. Raccoon General reports it is becoming overwhelmed by the influx of patients, with the staff working overtime to aid and assist all incoming inquiries.” _

Arklay Mountains, Raccoon City and Raccoon Hospital all sounded  _ way _ too familiar for my liking, and it didn’t take me long to realize my car was slowing down. Something was off about this, why did those names sound so familiar to me, and why could I place it?

Damn it! It couldn’t have been that long ago that I knew about them!

_ “Sightings of these strange monsters have been reported in and around the city, and people are being advised to stay indoors until furth-” _

A lot of things happened in those few moments.

The most prevalent things were the realization of where I was…

Plus the sight of a pickup truck going balls deep into the rear end of my car was pretty hard to ignore.

My world spun around, glass and metal filled my red glazed vision. I was thrown about for a bit before coming to a stop, but it was so blurry and my head spun…

I couldn’t focus.

Couldn’t breath.

Can’t...

…

Fuck.

* * *

_ Floating on clouds was nice. _

_ Carelessly flying amidst the sunny blue skies, a cool wind blowing across my body, and the sun shining on my face. _

_ I felt pretty damn good. _

Then I came crashing down from the heavens and chokeslammed back into reality.

Beeping filled my ears, as did the buzzing and cracking of machinery. I peeled my eyes open and was greeted with the flickering fluorescent light bulbs above me, and lighting to the side. The beeping came from something on a stand next to me that looked a little familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“F-fuck.” I brought up a hand to rub my eyes, to try and clear them up. I felt weak, sticky, my eyelids were heavy and my mouth dry. I started coughing, lungs hacking up whatever I had inside before sending me into a wheezing fit.

My chest hurt, my back was killing me; everything fucking hurt so bad, and ached. I was sweaty, and felt like death.

What was going on?

Once my eyes cleared up, I was able to discern the fact I was in a hospital ICU. I was on a bed, surrounded by some blocky and cumbersome machines that were hooked up to me. The air was musty, and the lighting stung my eyes even though it was dim, so damn sensitive.

I couldn’t hear much aside from the buzzing and flickering, and the beeping. I heard some noises further away; loud bangs and crashes, pops and cracks, almost like gunshots. But that didn’t make sense, why were there gunshots in a hospital? Fucking… I needed to get up, I needed answers!

I reached around for the nurse call button once things cleared up more, and I saw the area that I was in was in disarray. Things were thrown around, the screens for x-ray pictures were flickering and covered in something red… blood? Handprints and other markings, none of it looked good.

I found the button after a moment and hit it several times, eliciting a beeping noise that should alert the nurses.

But after several minutes of random noises, no one came.

Paranoia and anxiety began to well up in my stomach.

_ Shit, this isn’t good. _

I let loose another coughing fit before ripping the sheets from my body and sitting up, as best I could. I sat up and swung my aching legs off of the bed, and it was then I found I was covered in bandages around my chest and left arm, and some around my right shoulder.

My face stung and when I reached up to touch it, I felt some bandages there too.

Fucking hell, what happened to me?

I tried to remember, but it slipped my mind, but whatever happened, it messed me up good if I ended up in the ICU. But I was well enough to stand, more or less, that’s all I needed to know to get my ass moving.

I stood up and fought against the pain rushing through my body. My ribcage was burning and stinging, every breath felt like fire coursing through my lungs and spreading throughout my chest. My legs were aching from every step I took, my knees shook, I was fucked up and needed help, but no one was around.

The floor was covered in paper, brackish blood stained the tiles as lighting and wires hung from the ceiling. Blood covered the walls, foot and shoe prints trailed around in the pools leading out into the ruined halls. When I left the ICU, I saw a lot of the place had been completely ransacked; between the shattered glass and the bodies… oh my god.

What happened here? Where was everyone?

“H-hello?” I called out quietly as those noises I heard grew distant, as if they were moving away from where I was.

I saw the bodies of nurses, patients and random civilians everywhere, a lot of them looked like they had been mauled by wild animals. But how did they get inside, and more importantly, were they still inside?

Why couldn’t I think properly? Goddamn it, something was missing and I couldn’t place it, something was so off about all of this.

When I reached a nearby window, I saw I was on the second floor of the hospital. But out in the streets surrounding the hospital, I saw the hastily clogged city streets. A lot of police cruisers were blocking off a lot of the roads alongside some barricades, busses, some random cars preventing people from driving or otherwise accessing that roadway.

But these were deliberate crashes, on purpose to prevent someone or something from going that way.

I saw some souls stumbling around near some high metal fences blocking off one road, held in place by a bus and some cars, some tried climbing over it while others were bent over something on the ground, I couldn’t see what.

Too dark, it was night time…? Damn.

I backed away from the window and turned around to continue down one of the bloodied and messy hallways, littered with scattered medical tools, carts and stretchers. It looked like a battle had been fought in this damn place.

I had to use the wall for support the entire way, slow methodical steps across shattered glass and scattered junk on bare feet. They had me in a fucking gown and I had no clue where my shit was in here.

I stumbled across an open door into a room, where a single nurse lay dead against the wall. Some papers were scattered about, alongside containers that had been knocked over, one of which had a familiar looking black/yellow cap in it.

I scrambled into the room and onto my knees, and I discovered the bin had my items in it, my clothes, car keys, phone, wallet, jacket…

Damn, talk about good luck.

I carefully disrobed and put my other clothes back on, messed up as they were. Luckily my jacket and cap were still in one piece, so I wasn’t too bothered by how messed up the rest of my clothing was.

Once I had everything on, I stood back up and looked around for anything else I could use, but the majority of the bins which filled this damn room were just regular clothes and shoes, and some other items that wouldn’t really help me out any.

Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t retrieving some valuables from the wallets.

I wasn’t an asshole but if the opportunity presented itself...

Besides, no cameras, so.

After I made my claims I exited the room and continued down the hall. My wounds prevented me from moving very fast, but I didn’t let it stop me as I heard more of those pops and cracks. I had more of a clear mind now, and I noticed now those were gunshots, automatic and semi automatic, even some shotguns too.

It sounded like a warzone outside.

Once I reached the end of the hall, I found more bodies, more blood, more shattered windows, but also saw fires burning outside. I approached one of the windows and saw a burning bus had crashed into the side of the hospital, hot flames licked the side of the building and underside, as it had plowed straight through the stone wall outside and directly into the side of the hospital.

Shit, that meant…

A fire alarm went off across the whole building, loudly blaring for anyone inside to evacuate. Hopefully the fire wouldn’t spread too fast, I still didn’t know where the damn exit was in this place, or where the stairs or elevator was.

I needed help!

“Is there anyone there?!” I called out again, but still no damn answer from anyone. I started to worry. Where was everyone at?

Finally I made it to a nurse’s office and the open door, and stumbled inside.

The office was abandoned too, and someone had apparently built a barricade on the other side, blocking off the smaller portion where some desks were sitting. A lot of papers were in the floor, some shattered bottles, some soda cans, snacks, all kinds of jun-

“W-who are you?!”

I stumbled to the side and looked up, and on the other side of the barricade I found a nurse! A short brunette who was holding a pipe. She glared at me and shakily gestured towards me with the makeshift weapon.

“S-stay back, you monster!”

I held up a hand. “C-calm down, I’m not a monster.” I told her and kept my one arm around my chest, it burned so badly. A look of realization crossed her features, and she lowered her weapon. “H-hey, what’s going on here, where is everyone?”

She was shaking behind the barricade, clearly distraught. “T-they’re all gone… all  _ gone. _ ” She whispered, trembling. “They don’t stay dead, they don’t!”

_ She’s fucking hysterical. _ She was covered in blood too, and I swore I thought I saw a body on the other side of the barricade. “What do you mean they don’t stay dead? What are you on about?”  _ They don’t stay dead? _

“They don’t stay  _ dead! _ ” She yelled to me, and her eyes bore deeply into my own. “W-we took on so many patients, so many sick and injured… some kind of virus, a-an unknown pathogen, it made them violent, angry!” She trembled, tears trailing down her cheeks. “W-when they died, they came back! They killed everyone, made them the same! The hospital is full of them, the city! The dead are walking! THE DEAD ARE WALKING!”

I froze, just the sound of that sounded horrifying… and slowly, things were starting to come back to me. “T-the dead are walking?” I swallowed hard and looked out of the window and into the streets, and those stumbling people.

_ Raccoon! _

The name reverberated in my skull like a ping pong ball, bouncing to and fro and making my headache even worse. “Ung.”

“They’re killing everyone… t-those monsters from the Arklay Mountains, they’re in the city! Turning everyone into monsters!” She continued, “S-so many of them, so many monsters… n-no end, j-judgement day has come!”

_ ‘N-no! Not judgement day, no… it’s a viral outbreak, Raccoon City you damn fool!’ _ A voice screamed at me, as the pieces fell into place of why everything seemed so familiar. “R-Raccoon…?”

I was hunched over without even noticing, and I managed to break away from it to look over to the nurse… and I noticed there was a man behind her.

“W-who…?” I pointed behind her, who was…

Her eyes went wide as she turned around. “D-Dr. Hartman! Y-you… you’re…? Oh god no, no no no! Stay away from me! NO!”

The man jumped her and brought her right to the ground, and the violent sounds of him ripping into her, and her blood curdling scream was all I heard.

Raccoon City… Resident Evil…

Oh fuck me  _ no no no no! _

I summoned up whatever energy I had in my body and rushed out of the room, back into the hall!

I heard moans now, now I could hear them. It wasn’t the building creaking, nor pipes being weighed down, it was the undead.

I turned and looked down the hall where I came from and I saw them!

A few at first, in patient gowns and nurse uniforms, lab coats. But then police officers, EMT personnel, a few regular civilians coming from around the corner.

They stumbled and groaned, moving into one another slowly, until they caught sight of me, then they got angry and started moving faster.

Way faster than I was hoping.

I backed up and looked behind me, and I didn’t see any down there.

So with what I had left for energy, I pushed back the fucking pain, bit down and ran for it!

_ Fuck me! How in the hell!? _

Confusion and fear ran through me faster than my blood ever could, but I had to get to safety before I was fucking eaten the fuck alive by these things!

I pushed past everything that was in my way; shelves, carts, stretchers with body bags on them, I didn’t give a shit what was in my way. I needed to get away from these fuckers and to somewhere safe!

Open doors to rooms and other hallways only showed more carnage, bodies being devoured by the walking dead! So much blood, so many loud moans around every corner.

Death encroaching from nearby, ready to feast on me like I was a five course meal.

The stairs finally greeted me and I didn’t waste time before flying down them, sending shockwaves of pain rushing through my system as I all but flew down the flights.

I slammed into every wall on the way down, scrambling to make it as far down as fast as I could.

I was on the first floor now, in one of the vast open hallways where I ran into more of those undead. All of them were crowded around corpses, tearing into them and ripping flesh from bone like rabid dogs.

It didn’t take long before the majority of them noticed me; a still living and breathing human,  _ fresh meat. _

“Shiiiiit!” I turned and ran down the other hall, the one with the  _ least _ amount of zombies filling it.

I had no choice, every which way was full of them.

The first floor was a corpse laden graveyard, a fucking above ground tomb with who knows how many bodies in it.

I could only imagine how many people scrambled here during the outbreak’s initial panic in search of medical aid and to hide, only to find themselves cornered.

Eaten alive.

The zombies I passed by tried grabbing me, and while a few succeeding in doing so, were pushed away.

I was not getting caught, hell no!

Another turn and I rushed down the hall, and right towards an emergency shutter that had shut halfway down overtop a stretcher, crushing some poor undead sod underneath.

But it provided me with a way to escape if I did it right!

I heard it groaning, which meant it was struggling to go down all the way, the stretcher was in the way.

I move it, the thing comes down…

I dropped to my knees and crawled underneath the shutter, avoiding the grabby hands of the trapped undead before standing. There was just enough clearance for the hoard chasing me, but if I helped close the shutter, I’d buy myself more time.

The undead was struggling to get free now, as he locked eyes with me and growled with every swipe of his bloodied hands. He was held down by the stretcher’s straps and pinned by the steel shutter.

Maybe a good kick?

I backed up and pulled my leg back, then kicked the stretcher hard, forcing it to jostle and slide a bit under the shutter, but not all the way. It was a heavy damn thing, maybe if I tried lifting it up and then sliding it further?

I bent down and grabbed onto the bottom, then tried hefting it up.

Only for my ribs to give out and I collapsed onto my ass. Pain flared up in my torso and I started coughing again.

Fuck! I had to get away, this was a stupid id-

“A survivor!”

“Hurry, close that shutter! Kevin, get him over here!”

“On it!”

I was immediately grabbed and pulled away from the shutter as two other men rushed over to the shutter and the encroaching zombie hoard, before lifting it up while a woman pushed it under, sending the undead flying.

The shutter fell down with a crash just as the hoard got nearby and I was pulled to my feet.

“Shit, you alright?”

I groaned and held my chest, coughing and hacking up what was left in my stomach before looking at the people who arrived.

I found myself looking at some familiar faces.

An armored R.P.D. Officer, a burly security officer, a man in a dark brown suit, and a woman in a cocktail waitress uniform. All of these faces I knew all too well, Kevin, Mark, George, and Cindy, four protagonists from the Resident Evil Outbreak games.

“Hey, are you bitten?”

“Now ain’t the time, we should get away while we still can.” George spoke up with a look back at the shutter. “That shutter will not hold long under such duress.”

The crowd slammed against the barricade en masse, and even though it gave the appearance of holding steady, I couldn’t see it holding up for very much longer.

“We need to find a way out of here.” Cindy whispered from where she was standing next to Kevin.

“The lobby’s a fucking mess, we’ll have to use one of the service entrances, or the ambulance bay to get out.” Kevin stated as we started to move.

We started moving away from the shutter, quickly making our way down the halls towards a safer destination, I hoped. Kevin and George talked about their gameplan on what to do while Cindy had moved over to my side and Mark took up the rear to guard us.

Cindy looked up at me and spoke up, “are you alright?”

My ribcage was burning and I felt like if I moved wrong, I’d throw up. “I’m fine, j-just… recovering still.” Definitely fine.

After we passed down another hallway, Cindy looked me over, “What happened to you? You look pretty beat up.”

“Car crash.” I remembered it now, a truck had plowed into my car and sent me spiraling out of control. “I passed out from my injuries and woke up in the ICU, I’m still in pretty rough shape… hurts to move.”

“So you weren’t bitten?” Kevin asked me after looking back. I shook my head.

“Not as far as I know, I just got hurt from the car crash… been in the ICU for who knows how long, I just woke up not too long ago.” I kept an arm around my ribs as we kept moving, eventually arriving at a junction where halls met up… near the front entrance it looked like.

But the area was a massacre, it looked like the massive security had been barricaded heavily and blocked off, beyond them… I could see a dense hoard of monsters behind them, milling about and devouring whoever and whatever remained. It was barely in one piece, if they all came down on it...

“Kevin!” I heard another woman’s voice yell.

From the other hall I saw the other survivors, led by Alyssa Ashcroft, with Jim, David, and Yoko behind her. Yoko was carrying her backpack, Jim had a lead pipe, David a large blade, and Ashcroft herself, a handgun.

“The way to the Ambulance bay is blocked off!” Jim announced as they all skid to a stop.

“Someone dropped the security shutter there, we can’t get past it.” Alyssa explained as the lights began flickering all around us.

“Damn it, what about the service entrances?” Kevin asked next.

“Too many zombies.” David grumbled.

“Halls are too packed up with them.” Yoko added, looking behind her. “We shouldn’t have come here.”

“I knew this was a mistake!” Jim started. “We shoulda gone with the cops!”

“Just calm down! We’ll figure this out!”

My legs began to tremble, and I felt dizzy before my arm was lifted up. I looked and saw Cindy next to me, helping me stand up before hauling me over to a bench. “Here, sit down. You probably haven’t recovered much since your crash.”

“Probably not, everything’s still fresh.” I winced.

Seems like no one had any plan on what to do, or if they did they were ruined by the zombies and closed off exits. Seems we were trapped in the hospital, literally one of the worst places to be when an outbreak of any kind unfolds. It wouldn’t be long before we were found and overwhelmed, then devoured like wildebeests trapped in a corner.

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to such a fate.

“There  _ is _ no other way out of here, all of the exits are blocked off by those damn shutters and the zombies!” Kevin growled and kicked some garbage aside.

“Son, calm down, we’ll find a way out of this.” Mark broke in. “There’s got to be another way.”

I looked at the shutter to the lobby, where it was blocked off. Beyond it, I could make out the silhouettes of dozens of undead, crammed in there and just waiting for something,  _ someone _ to come along.

Then the power flickered, the lights were buzzing before they shut off. The whole building whirred to a stop, everything shut off and we were drowned in the darkness. Before very long, some dull red emergency lights bled throughout the halls, but it only made things worse somehow.

“The power’s out?”

“I don’t suppose anyone has a flashlight?”

Aided by the adorable Cindy, I struggled to get onto my feet. “Th-there’s a way out.” I spoke up, and it got everyone’s attention.

“How? All of the shutters are down, and the power’s off on top of that...” Jim whined as David kept an eye out.

The halls were dark, and even though the emergency lighting was on, it didn’t exactly help our eyesight with seeing further down. Anything could be lurking in those halls, and we knew it, we could  _ feel  _ their eyes on us all.

“Underground.” I wheezed out as my ribcage started to burn again, near my lower left side.  _ Damn it, got my bad ribs I guess. _ “We can u-use the sewer system, go through the tunnels under the city to get out and back onto the streets.”

“You've been down there before?” Kevin raised an eyebrow at me.

_ In a sense. _ I recalled my previous treks through the hospital in the game, Outbreak. But the tunnels didn’t usually lead outside, only further down to the Hive. But it was better than here, more open, maybe. “I… I have. There are access tunnels under the hospital in the basement furthest down, near the morgue lead to the sewer system…”

“Shit, how do we get down there?” Alyssa questioned. “The shutters-”

“The security office.” George cut in for both of us. “They have a control panel for the shutters in there, we can override the lockdown from there.”

“Will it work without the power? The building is running on emergency power right now,” Kevin commented, gesturing to the lights. “Is there enough to do it?”

George shook his head. “Probably not. We’ll need to restore the power somehow if we are to escape.”

I coughed and spat. I tasted iron on my tongue, but ignored it in favor of adding, “we’ll have to find the breaker then to restore it, if not, then find a way to reroute the power so we can open the shutters and use the elevators to get below ground.”

“I think I hear them!” Jim whispered suddenly, holding up his lead pipe.

“We should get moving, George, do you know where the breaker is?” Kevin started as the distant shuffling got louder.

I felt Cindy’s hand on my arm, and heard her ask quietly, “are you gonna be okay to move?”

I turned to regard her, and even though we just met, she had such a kind look in her eyes. I gave her a smile in return and nodded, despite the pain in my body, I’d move. “Don’t have much choice, do I? I don’t plan on getting eaten by these freaks… not tonight, not tomorrow either.”

“Alight, we got a plan, so let’s move before things get worse.” Kevin turned to the rest of us as a noise sounded near the main shutter. “Let’s get this lockdown lifted and get down to the sewers.”

A bang sounded against the barricade beside us, and we could see the dozens of undead were now alerted to our existence. They were a growling and snarling mass of hungry cannibals eager to break through, and with how many of them there were.

I heard the shutter groan and shake under the assault of so many, and around the halls… that noise echoed.

Then the distant moans got louder…

Shit.


	2. Security Maintenance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After awakening in the Raccoon City Hospital, Dutch has allied with some survivors to try and escape the threat of undead bearing down on them at every turn.

Being split up in the dark amidst gunfire, moaning and screeching, was horrifying. Body aching, wounds burning, breathing becoming more difficult by the second, it was fucking ridiculous, and I had no weapon either to defend myself with, so this was  _ just _ great.

Cindy had stayed by my side as we had gotten split up, between the dozens of undead swarming the halls and the front shutter starting to give way, we had no choice but to enact the plan on our own, splitting up to find what we needed to turn on, reroute the power, open the shutters and get down below the hospital to where we needed to go.

Gunshots filled the halls, as did the shouts and the moans of the undead. I forced myself to move with Cindy’s aid. This girl, I swear, risking her life to help me when she had her own group to worry about?

The doors in the hall were completely broken down, with several bodies inside ripped to shreds. We moved past them, the few undead we encountered we shoved out of the way to get to where we needed to head to.

I was recognizing the hall we were going down, before very much longer I saw the alternate entrance to the lobby approaching, off to the left while up ahead there was a wooden door leading to the 1st floor security office and a door leading further into the hospital, but it was closed down by a shutter.

“T-there, to the office!” I started for it and Cindy aided me.

We ran for it as fast as we could to it. Once we got there, I opened the door and looked inside; it was long abandoned with only scattered papers and other junk laying about.

Cindy ushered me inside and closed the door, locking the door and closing the blinds before moving a chair up against it. I decided to have a look around inside, to make sure it was truly abandoned.

I found the desks nearby were completely ransacked, as if someone was searching for something. I saw the computer was on though, an older model that looked like an Acer or something from the 90s, fitting considering the time period I’m supposedly in at the moment. The chairs were pushed aside, some boxes sat in the corners filled with dozens of old manilla folders and documents.

Off towards the back, I saw the controls for the shutter system and lockdown sequence. It was a bulky looking machine, grey in stark contrast to the 70s like decor in the office. A chair in front of it, and blood covering one of the screens. All of the screens showed different areas of the hospital, security camera footage.

Seems I was wrong earlier, there were cameras. But I wasn’t too concerned with my earlier thievery, as if it would matter.

I sat down in the chair nearby in front of the machine and looked it over, specifically the few screens still lit up. Even though the emergency power was on, it kept this system online enough to allow the cameras to operate.

“Let’s see here...” I looked at the controls, some levers, buttons, a keyboard. I started typing on the main screen, trying to find anything that would lead me to the shutter system. Shame it wasn’t as easy as pressing a single button.

Cindy eventually came over to me after making sure we were secure inside of here. I felt her presence behind me, her breathing was starting to calm as she looked over my shoulder. “What is all of this?”

“Security system for the hospital. Looks like the emergency power is keeping it operational for the time being,” I explained and continued looking through the system, which seemed pretty straight forward for the most part. I found the controls for most of the lockdown procedures, including how to lift it and allow us to escape. “I wonder...”

I tried accessing the lockdown procedures through some files and button fuckery, and I found the prompt to disable the lockdown, but my attempts to access it and lift it were not as fruitful as I hoped. I was given a massive box that  _ ‘Not Enough Power! Reroute Power To Security Subsystems To Continue!’ _

“Damn, figured as much.” I leaned back in the chair and took off my cap, setting it on my knee and brushing a hand through my hair. “Not enough power...”

“Can we fix it?” Cindy quietly asked, continuing to look at the screens.

I turned to regard her for a moment, but with how I was sitting I only got an eyeful of her chest. While her clothing was conservative and appropriate for a waitress; not exactly showy or exposing much of her body, it did little to hide her busty chest from my view. Her shirt and vest were taut, and with how she leaned forward…

She wasn’t this big last I remembered, least from the games. She was at most, a modest B-Cup or so in the games, but here it looked like she was rocking a pair of Double-D’s.

I shook my head and looked up at her face; her pale yet soft features were lit up by the screen, accentuating her gorgeous and lightly pampered face. Despite the horrible situation we were in, a lot of people wouldn’t have such bright eyes… bright and hopeful like shining stars partnered with moonlight.

I shook my head again and tried to ignore the fluttering feeling in my chest. “Uhm, yeah… yeah, we can.” I adjusted my jacket and carefully exhaled as I shifted on the chair. “We need to find where the Emergency Power Generator is located, and either reroute the power to what we need, or find a way to turn the power back on throughout the whole hospital.”

Cindy made a humming noise before starting to look around, and I turned my attention back to the computer.

“But either is a risky venture, I have no idea where the generators are or the breaker. Your friend in the brown suit seems like he knows, I guess he worked here.” I added and looked through the screens, and I saw the group had split off and had branched off down different halls in the hospital, staying safe still, thankfully. “If I had a way to contact them I could try directing them… or giving them assistance somehow.”

I tried thinking of some way to contact them, but without a radio or anythin-

“Would this help?”

Cindy got my attention with an object in her hand, a black rectangular object with a speaker, an antenna… It was a radio!

My eyes lit up and a grin stretched across my face. “Oh god bless you gorgeous.” I took the radio and immediately turned it on.

I almost missed the blush Cindy had on her face.

While this was an older radio, I could still operate it like any other. I flicked the knobs until I found the appropriate channel, which I imagined was linked to other security guard radios or police radios spread throughout the building, maybe the survivors had one or would be able to get their hands on some if I used it.

I held down the button, and went to work. “Hello hello hello, if anyone is on this frequency, please respond.” I let it go, waited a few seconds, then tried again after no response. “I say again, if anyone is on this frequency please respond! We’re a group of survivors trapped inside of the hospital and need immediate assistance!”

I let the button go and listened to the crackling for a moment. I wasn’t originally gonna go on all channels, but if  _ anyone _ can listen to this, maybe someone from the outside could help? I knew of a few who had radios, most of them belonging to a certain organization that operated in the city currently.

Hopefully they weren’t listening in, but knowing my luck?

_ “We read you loud and clear, survivors! You say the hospital?” _ I heard a voice come over the radio, a man with a distinct kind of accent.  _ “It wouldn’t happen to be Raccoon City General, would it?” _

Cindy and I both eyed the radio before I replied. “Y-yeah! We’re trapped inside, the power shut off and there’s a lockdown we can’t lift.” I explained to them, but I had no idea who they were. “Mind if I ask who this is?”

_ “Lieutenant Lewis Hamilton, U.B.C.S.” _ Came the voice’s reply.  _ “We’re evacuating civilians from the north of the city and heading south!” _ Over the radio I could hear the clamoring of people, survivors, seems the UBCS is doing their job… for the time being.  _ “Squad B! Are you still near the Clock Tower?” _

Squad B? Guess he was a platoon leader… damn.

_ “Squad B here! We just rounded up some civvies in the park and we’re headed to the rendezvous point!” _ Came another man’s voice.

“The park isn’t too far from here.” Cindy commented and I nodded. It was right across from the hospital if I remembered the layout of the city right.

“It’s north of us… they’re right by us.” I added.

_ “We got some survivors trapped in the hospital! I don’t know how many, but perform search and rescue ASAP.” _ Lewis yelled over the headset amidst gunfire.  _ “Got more of those mutant freaks coming our way! Hamilton out!” _

_ “Squad B to the survivors, if you can read me, we’re on our wa-” _ The radio cut out after that, static and gunfire sounded almost immediately after that.

I stared at the radio and balked before looking back at the cameras, and saw the group had managed to make it to safe areas. They were looking around now, either for medical supplies or ways to get out.

“D-did the radio die? What happened?” Cindy looked at the device in my hand, and I flicked through the channels, but I didn’t hear much of anything except static.

“I… don’t know, maybe they got out of range or their radio was knocked out somehow? Either way...” I looked at the screens and put the radio on all frequencies. “Guys, I’m with Cindy.” I spoke into the radio as they were looking around the hospital, hopefully they were near a radio. After no response, I gave the radio to Cindy. “Here, try to get into contact with them while I look around the office some more, maybe I can find a weapon or… or something.”

As I stood up and was beginning to move, Cindy placed a gentle yet firm hand on my shoulder. Cindy stood in front of me. She took the radio from me, before firmly pushing me back down into the chair. “You stay, rest… I’ll look around and try to find something we can use, I don’t want you aggravating your injuries any further.”

I found it hard to really argue, between that look she was giving me and the stern tone, I more or less found myself at a loss for words. So I just followed what she said and sat back down with a sigh. “Alright, I’ll just keep an eye on the cameras, I suppose...”

She didn’t really give me much choice but to sit my ass down and focus on healing and watching the cameras. Behind me I could hear her trying to contact them, maybe find an abandoned radio left behind on a desk, or a corpse, either way. I watched the feed for a time, and rested as best as I could given the circumstances I was put into.

_ Raccoon City of all places, how did this even happen?! _ I didn’t understand the jump from 2020 to 1998 here, let alone how I didn’t even fucking notice right off the bat. I knew the city looked old but I didn’t expect it was the city from my childhood horror games, this was unreal.  _ Cindy doesn’t even know the truth, none of them do. _

The truth of what happens to the city, of how much their reality is going to change once Raccoon City was wiped from the face of the earth in a wave of thermonuclear flame and destruction.

_ There had to have been something when I drove up here, some kind of… something that brought me here, but what? I was moving out west, headed for Nevada. The roads were fine, nothing weird happened as far back as I remember, so where… _

It was hurting my head to try and figure out.

_ “Cindy? You made it!” _ I heard Jim’s voice behind me.

“Jim! Thank god, I was thinking no one would respond.” Cindy replied to him.

_ Guess he found a radio, but where is he on the camera? _ I switched through the feeds, but only saw the dense horde of undead filling the halls. On a few feeds I found I saw the others had moved on to other rooms, but they were running out of places to go and fast.

Jim appeared on the camera after a moment, stalking through one of the dark halls by himself. He still had that pipe with him, but it was thoroughly bent and bloodied.

_ “I lost the others. This whole thing is fucked!” _ Jim started and I did my best not to roll my eyes. He was a coward, but he had his uses.  _ “What do I do?!” _

I turned to look back at Cindy and I could see her eyelid twitch from here, the constant whining from Jim was probably annoying to deal with. But even so she smiled and hit the button, “Jim, just calm down, okay? We’ll get out of this together.”

I gestured to her for the radio before turning back to the system. Once I had it in my hand, I hit the button. “Jim, I’m watching you on the camera right now-”

_ “Who the hell are you?!” _

“The new guy,” I muttered as I watched him stumble around, before hiding behind a counter in some portion of the hospital. “Look, the others don’t have a radio, so I can’t exactly tell them shit. I need you to stay calm while I talk you through what it is you need to do, okay?” I waited for a response, before adding, “the power needs to be either restored or rerouted, you understand?”

_ “That’s creepy as hell and I ain’t no goddamn electrician!” _

“I am well aware, kid.” I replied and kept looking through the feeds, before I managed to figure out where most of everything was. Hopefully I could guide his cowardly ass towards the main breaker or something, which I guessed had to be underground somewhere… Hopefully there were some stairs. “Listen, I’ve been watching the cameras, and I think I know where the breaker room is. If you want to get yourself and everyone out of this hellhole, you need to listen to me, understand?”

I saw him quivering on the camera, but he seemed a little more determined.  _ “Alright fine! Where the hell do I need to go?” _

I followed the screens for a moment; where Jim was, it looked like he was a half dozen rooms down from a hall, where I saw a set of stairs leading down. But from what I could tell, there weren’t any cameras underneath the building, so once he got there, he’d have to figure it out on his own.

Shit.

“You’re going to have to get out from under that desk, and you’ll turn around and head right. The hall looks clear, but I can’t tell with the rooms, but from what I can tell you have a straight shot down to the end.” I began telling him.

“Will he be alright?” I had let go of the button just as Cindy spoke.

Behind me, she was rooting through the desk. I nodded. “If he isn’t stupid about it, he’ll be fine. Just mess with the power, and I can open the shutters, and we’re home free.” Hopefully, if the breaker wasn’t down there and it was full of zombies instead? I basically sent him to his death.

_ “Where the hell am I going?” _ Jim asked me.

Back to the screen, I saw him jogging down the abandoned hall, past corpses and the red lighting. “You’ll turn right at the end of the hall, keep going until you see an opening on your left and a door, it’s a service entrance to the basement of the hospital. If I’m right, the breaker room should be down there for the generator.”

_ “Seriously? In the gotdamn basement?! Haven’t you ever seen horror movies man? That never ends well!” _

He raised a good point, but even so.

“Would you rather us die in the darkness?” I offered him, shrugging my shoulders.

He didn’t say anything, and I saw him slouch before continuing onward towards the basement entrance.

_ Fear’s always a good motivator. _ I remarked and leaned back in the chair.

“Did you have to scare him like that?” Cindy got my attention again.

“It’s just the cold hard truth, Cindy.” I began explaining before turning around to face the woman. My ribs felt less like they were on fire, before long I hoped I’d be able to move around. “There’s only two ways out of this mess, either we mess with the power and get out through the sewers, or we die here… plain and simple.” I turned halfway around to look at the barricaded door, and the few undead who wandered around. “I’m not an idiot… I can see how horrible this situation is, and while I am hopeful we’ll get out of this, I’m not going to say that without a doubt we’ll survive. My optimism isn’t exactly high these days.”

Cindy’s face screwed up, a frown tainting her otherwise pretty features. “It’s rough right now, but… we’ll get through this.”

“Yes, we will… or we die.” I shrugged. “All depends on how well Jim handles himself in the basement, and if he finds the breaker room or not.” I looked at her from the side. “We get out, or die. I don’t deal in absolutes. Cindy, sorry to tell you.”

I couldn’t deal in absolutes, nothing was ever  _ certain, _ I had to take everything as it came and give it my all to achieve the best result possible.

“I… I see.” Cindy hung her head and went back to searching, and I faced the system again.

Harsh as my ideals are, that’s just how it is.

No absolutes, only attempts that go one way or another.

The destruction of this damned city? That was the  _ only _ exception.

Once Jim disappeared from view, I kept an eye on the others and waited for Jim to call me back. It seemed like everyone was still defending themselves rather well, the more combat oriented members especially; like Kevin, David, Mark and Alyssa for example, the former two being especially deadly despite being on their own.

David’s skills with a blade were no doubt unmatched by a scant few in this city, only reminding me of his shrouded past in shady activities. Kevin was skilled in firearms and it was obvious why, being a prime candidate for S.T.A.R.S. but not picked for various reasons.

Wouldn’t mind picking up a thing or two from them.

“I found something.” Cindy finally said after a moment.

After whirling around, Cindy had in her hands something that tilted the odds more in our favor. Nickel plated with a six inch barrel and oak wood grips on it, six rounds, chambered in .357 Magnum; a Smith and Wesson Model 17 revolver.

“Well damn.” I leaned forward and took the revolver from her, which she was all too eager to hand over. It felt heavy in my hands, delightfully so. I checked the cylinder and found it with six shots already loaded, good for me. “Any ammunition laying around for it?”

“I found a few…” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the bullets, six for a total of twelve shots. “Here.”

I took those and stuffed them into my hoodie pocket. “Alright, the odds have tipped in our favor for the time being.” After making sure it was ready to go, I turned back to the cameras and lifted up the radio, before hitting the speak button. “Jim, did you find anything yet?”

_ “There’re fucking mutants down here man!” _ Jim cried out.  _ “I can’t see shit!” _

“Just stay calm, you should be looking for a generator or something like a panel that will have a lot of lights on it.” I told him as the survivors kept fighting, moving deeper into the hospital. Looked like George had found a handgun at some point as well, and was keeping pace with Yoko. “It shouldn’t be far.”

_ “Shit… I think I found it!” _ I started to get anxious.  _ “What the hell is this shit!? It’s a bunch of random buttons! There’s no markings or anything!” _ I heard him click a button, but nothing happened.  _ “It just made some of the other lights on the buttons go off.” _

“A puzzle system? What the fuck, man.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and looked down at the camera. “It’s a puzzle, if I had to guess, it’s a puzzle where you have to hit the buttons in a sequence to light them all up before restoring the power.”

_ “A puzzle? Shit man, I love puzzles.” _ Jim sounded a little excited at that. He was the puzzle guy of the group, hopefully he’d solve it in a short time.  _ “Give me a second.” _

“Don’t waste too much time down there. We need to get the power up and running as quick as possible if we’re going to get out of here.” I told him and started watching the cameras.

I saw something that ended up sending shivers down my spine, and not only turned the tides against us, but started the clock that counted down our demise.

Kevin and Alyssa, together were firing at a black writhing mass that stumbled towards them. A walking corpse covered in one of the very things that helped infect this city, a being of  _ absolute terror _ that was nearly impossible to kill.

The Leech Man.

One of the deadliest enemies in the hospital outside of the Leech Queen, and he was on the loose. Fuck!

_ “I think I figured it out!” _ I heard Jim’s voice, scant seconds later I heard a loud noise throughout the building. The lights in the office flickered on and the computer system in front of me took on a brighter glow.

“Shit, good job! Now get back up here, we gotta move and move fast! Find the others and get to the fucking elevator now!” I told him and clipped the radio to my belt.

“What’s going on?” Cindy came over as I was messing with the system, namely rebooting the elevator system and the lockdown.

“There’s some kind of monster on the loose.” I told her as I turned on the alarm that came on and rerouted some power to the elevators. “I saw Kevin and Alyssa on the camera shooting it, but it wasn’t doing anything. We need to get out of here,  _ now. _ ” I typed away at the keyboard and initiated the protocols to lift the lockdown, which in turn opened every single shutter in the hospital.

Including the one at the lobby, where the near hundred or so undead were gathered…

They began flowing in after Yoko and George ran past, and that barricade that was there stood no chance.

“Cindy, we have to get moving… GO!”

* * *

Out of the office we moved into the well lit halls of the hospital, but it didn’t come at a cost. The shutters were open and that meant everything that  _ was _ locked up was now released, which meant the hoard we were facing was much larger.

I was able to move without Cindy’s help, but goddamn if my body didn’t hurt worse than before. I could still move by myself, and I did just that as I made a bee-line to the elevators with Cindy’s help.

I could hear gunfire all around, George, Alyssa, Mark and Kevin no doubt fending off the zombies that got too close for comfort.

I didn’t have to fire my gun yet, but I knew I would have to and I had to make every shot count. The elevator wasn’t too far from us now, it was just a little further down the halls, a right and we’d be there assuming none of the zombies got the jump on us.

“Yoko, this way!” I heard gunfire and off down the hall to my left, George and Yoko were running towards us.

“Elevator’s this way! Let’s move!” I yelled at them and started moving faster, they had a hoard on their tail.

We were running at this point, fueled by our mutual desperation to escape this nightmare in one piece. Our right, and Kevin and Alyssa came running as well, chased by a few zombies who broke free from several rooms nearby.

“Guys! This way! The elevator’s open! Let’s get out of this hellhole!” I heard Jim up ahead where he stood alongside David and Mark, the former covered in blood.

We all started running faster pushing past junk and corpses to get to where we needed.

We rounded the corner at last and headed straight to the elevator.

Behind Mark and David, I saw him!

“Behind you guys!” Cindy cried.

David was quick on his feet, he whirled around with one of his blades - one of two I noticed he had - and he slashed at the mutant; Leech Man, killing several leeches and sending brackish blood splattering.

Mark backed up with his handgun and waited until David kicked the beast away before unloading into him. Several loud shots rang out, echoing in the halls alongside the violent splattering as leeches were torn apart by the 9mm rounds.

The Leech Man suffered and collapsed for a moment, gurgling amidst thousands of leeches sucking away his fluids.

The elevator suddenly dinged and the doors opened, and everyone quickly ran inside, filing inside with the guns in back and melee at the front.

Cindy and I were last.

I was about to get inside, I was about to be fucking free from this.

Rabid snarling sounded to my immediate left, where Cindy was. Beside her coming up like a fucking blur was a cerberus hound, moving fast!

My body moved on autopilot, and I grabbed Cindy’s arm as we were moving and with a quick move, I threw her into the elevator with the others.

Just in time too, as I got tackled by the hound and knocked over.

“Fuck! Fuck!” I screamed as the hound got a hold of me, but the elevator doors shut before anyone could help me.

All around me I heard the undead moaning, shambling towards me as if the sudden realization of what was happening filled their infected minds.

_ Pinned meat. _

I had to dig my arms and hands into the hound using everything I had to keep him from sinking his jagged teeth into me. Slobber and his rabid barking filled my ears, blood pumped through me, adrenaline began to flood my heart.

“Nnng! No! Bad! Bad mutt!” I held tight my revolver and jammed it through the bottom of its jaw. I pushed against the mutated hound, forcing him up and off of me before-

**_BOOM_ **

I pulled the trigger, blowing the top half of its muzzle and face off. It yelped and I kicked the eighty-something pound mutt from me.

My legs started moving before the rest of my body did, but it was more than enough time to get me off of the floor and to start moving away from the hoard that was closing in.

The Leech Man had finally stood again and he tried grabbing me, but a well placed kick into his leech covered gut sent him back.

I aimed my revolver as I stumbled away and shot him in the knee, the .357 round absolutely shattered his kneecap, blood and bits of bone flew out the back of his leg and he collapsed to the floor.

I started to run away as an unholy screech escaped him.

_ Not getting caught now, hell no. _

I ran down the hall as the hoard stampeded after me, thankfully slow enough so I didn’t have to put too much effort into running. But regardless, I kept moving as fast as my battered and beaten body would allow me.

_ Leave it to my luck to be so bad I get tackled before I get out of here, fuck me. _

I was making a loop around the hospital it seemed, crashing through doors and stumbling down carnage ridden halls in a sad attempt to find safety on the  _ outside _ of the hospital.

Doors crashed open and more undead joined the hoard, I was leading a  _ small town _ at this rate!

Eventually I reached a service entrance I hadn’t previously seen, and not thinking about it.

I burst through the door and shut it close behind me as I headed down a narrow corridor where an exit door waited for me.

I rushed for it, the taste of freedom overwhelmed me. Behind me, the door strained under the onslaught of dozens of hungry bodies struggling to get to me no matter the cost.

_ Just a little further, come on body, move! _

The door was closer now, and once I reached it I pushed on the handle. Putting my weight against the door, it opened wide and I was thrust out into the dark and rainy streets of Raccoon City.

Thunder rumbled and my poor eyesight struggled to see in the thick sheets falling from the sky above.

It wasn’t until rapid footsteps to my right startled me and I raised my revolver, prepared to fire as panic rushed through my body.

A flashlight nearly blinded me, as did the sight of a gun barrel being pointed at me.

“Just take it easy buddy.” Came a woman’s voice. “I’m not here to shoot civilians.”

I shakily lowered my revolver, I was outgunned here. She lowered hers as well and the flashlight on her chest rig kept the area alight. After my eyes cleared up enough to see properly, I saw a woman dressed in a U.B.C.S. uniform and wielding an M4A1 Carbine, decked out with a flashlight and an underslung grenade launcher.

“Hamilton! I found a survivor outside the hospital. He’s in bad shape.” She told him over the radio on her shoulder. After a moment of silence, she grunted and tried again, “Hamilton! Does anyone read?”

Only static greeted her.

“You’re with Squad B?” I asked her and her head snapped up to meet mine.

“You with the survivors in the hospital then?” She asked, I nodded and gestured to the radio on my belt. “Where’s the rest of you?”

I took a breath and gestured to the hospital door. “We got split up, a hoard of those things came down on us an-”

I nearly forgot I was being chased, and I was reminded when something slammed against the door.

“Fuck.”


	3. Heist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After encountering a UBCS squad and escaping the hospital intact, Dutch finds his journey with the squad ending rather abruptly before ending up at his apartment, and from there... he makes plans for a heist.

I’ve been awake for maybe two hours at most and already, I was on the run for my life  _ yet again _ , I was beginning to get pissed off! But what could I do? Cry?

Nope, just run some more and continue shouldering the pain I was drowning in from my ribcage and legs, among other places.

The woman was right behind me, opening up on the hoard with her M4. Automatic gunfire did its best to slow down the zombies trying to get to us, but she would run out of ammo before long.

“Keep running!” She yelled at me.

“I’m moving as fast as I can, lady!”

“It’s ma’am to you, kid!”

“I was in a car crash! So shut!”

“I need back up here! Got a whole bunch of these freaks chasing us!” She yelled into her radio, I guessed. “Hamilton where are you?!”

I veered off to the side, and when I was sure I had a clear shot, I aimed back and fired on one of the faster undead, nailing him right in the jaw and snapping it off.

Better shot than most, I’d wager.

_ “Sergeant! We’re coming in hot around the rear of the building!” _ I heard over both of our radios, and in the distance I heard gunfire and the sound of screeching tires.

“We’re approaching Army Street now! Get ready cause we got a fuckton of them on our asses!” The sergeant replied.

As we exited the sidestreets and made our way out into the city streets, we encountered even more undead piled behind a police barricade further up the street, and a few wandering stragglers.

Headlights shone from one end, before a vehicle screeched out into the open and rumbled its way towards us.

“Move move move!” The woman yelled at me and we moved out into the road.

We dispatched several undead on our way over, she killed several and I managed to nail two of them with well placed shots. The vehicle that pulled up was a flatbed humvee mounted with an M2HB Browning MG, the humvee was a dark olive green and had the UBCS symbol on the side doors.

I got to watch as the operator of the gun whirled around to face the hoard, before unleashing the might of .50 caliber lead upon very  _ fleshy _ and unarmored targets.

The Sarge and I climbed on board the humvee through the back, where another man wielding an M4 was open firing on the crowd as well, though he was taking more well aimed shots.

“Let’s get moving! We gotta find Hamilton, now!” The woman yelled and the humvee kicked off down the road, screeching and jostling us.

I held onto my gun and the humvee. “Holy fuck, you guys aren’t playing around.” We tore through the streets as the MG belched out a few more rounds here and there, either killing or disabling several undead.

“Where in the  _ fuck _ is Hamilton? I haven’t heard from him in hours!” The woman demanded, glaring at the others as she reloaded her gun.

“Squad A is gone, ma’am.” The one man told her, prompting a stronger glare. “Squad A was wiped out by some kind of fucking mutant with a  _ minigun. _ ”

“Baker, you’re fucking nuts.” She reprimanded with a bitter, yet nervous chuckle. “None of these fucking monsters can use guns.”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Navarro.” Baker told her as he returned her glare. “That thing was fucking huge and was carrying a goddamn minigun!”

_ Nemesis is on the loose already? Fucking hell. _ Only ‘mutant’ I knew who used that kind of armament was Nemesis, the giant t-virus infected Tyrant, specially made to wipe out STARS members to cover up the tragedy unfolding in the city.

No witnesses, no evidence, just a nuclear meltdown was their plan.

So I assumed, how else do you cover up the death of over a hundred thousand men, women and children?

“There’s no way.” Navarro muttered as we drove through the city.

I looked out into the dark and rainy streets before looking back at her. “The city is full of walking corpses, mutant leech monsters, and dogs out of a nightmare… is a giant with a minigun that much of a stretch?”

I wish it was just a bad joke, but I knew exactly who was in the city right now, which only told me things were going to get worse. As far as I knew, he didn’t target UBCS or regular civilians, purely STARS members because of what they knew.

But that squad had been wiped out by him, gunned down and forgotten. But why? Why suddenly target UBCS? They were being used to test how bioweapons fared against armed forces.

It didn’t make sense.

“So no one from Squad A survived?” Navarro asked Baker, and he shook his head.

“No ma’am, as I see it, you’re the new platoon leader now.” Baker told her as we drove down the street, past wrecked cars and boarded up buildings.

I just reloaded my revolver and kept an eye out on where we were going. From what I could see we were headed south from the hospital, down Raccoon Street to Warren, from what the signs still standing told me.

A lot of the buildings had been abandoned, lots of windows broken into and doors torn down. Bodies littered the sidewalks and the crashed cars nearby, torn into by the hordes of undead monsters plaguing the city streets. A lot of the alleyways were blocked off either by makeshift barricades, police blockades, or fences and destroyed vehicles.

Fires burned in the distance, gunshots and sirens filled the air, unable to be doused by the light rainfall from above. Even the efforts of fire fighters were difficult, they tried everything they could but in the end they had to retreat or were killed.

I saw one fire engine had been abandoned, and around it, the corpses of firefighters and civilians alike.

This whole city was falling apart and for the most ridiculous of reasons; not that any reason was a good one, but…

It all came down to one old man and his dream of a future where eugenics prospered, a future where the human race was cleansed of that which he declared impure.

_ I need to get out of this city, one way or another. _

The Humvee eventually pulled down another street, and I peered out from the side and saw we were headed towards an M35 Cargo Truck and a couple of Jeeps in a parking lot nearby.

Navarro stood up as we pulled in and I saw her face drop. “Jesus fuck.”

We pulled to a stop and Navarro and Baker jumped out alongside the driver. I swallowed the lump in my throat, fought through the pain and climbed out as well, difficult as it was.

I went around to the front of the truck and saw the sight for myself; the M35 had been peppered by gunfire and one of the jeeps was absolutely destroyed. Bodies of UBCS personnel lay everywhere, torn apart by gunfire and little more than chunks of flesh ripped asunder by a GAU Chaingun.

No survivors in sight.

“Son of a bitch, what the hell kind of mission are we dealing with?” Navarro muttered as Baker and the driver wandered around, checking the corpses and the vehicles. “First walking corpses, mutant dogs, monsters, and now a fucking giant with a minigun?” She kicked one of the bodies and grunted.

“Welcome to Raccoon I guess.” I commented dryly as I looked at the area.

I noted they had a couple of weapons and medical crates sitting out, and the parking lot was in the midst of being fortified. It was large too, and an area nearby had been cleared out and marked with flares and lights.

I guessed they were using this as a staging point, maybe even an evacuation route if they had a helicopter to call in, which I imagined they did.

“There goes the whole command portion of our unit.” The driver scoffed and spat. “Bugger all.”

“What’s our game plan now, boss?” Baker asked the woman.

“Shit… I don’t know, give me a second.”

I made my way to one of the medical crates and kicked it, popping it open and peering inside. Foam inserts gave way to a lot of field medical equipment and supplies, some of which I could probably use; namely the green bottles of healing spray.

I knelt down and grabbed onto one of the bottles and popped the cap off. I lifted my shirt where the bandages were and ripped them off, revealing my bruised side and rib cage.

_ This stuff has scant amounts of T-Virus in it if I’m not mistaken, that helps with the healing process. It’s just enough to kickstart the cells into working, but not enough to spread and cause uncontrollable mutation. _

I may have been talking out of my ass with that, I didn’t know, but any healing was good healing if you asked me.

I shook the can a bit to prep it and sprayed it on my chest. It was chilling when it connected with my skin, I shivered and fought against it as I continued spraying it and spread it throughout my chest and other areas I had been injured.

The aches and pains I had been enduring the whole time I was in the city were slowly going numb, and a pleasant sensation filled my body.

_ Relief. _

After the can was empty, I sat the can down on the ground and stood up. “Whew...”

“Are you one of the survivors then?” A voice drew my attention.

I turned and saw the driver, he was the only one who wore the full outfit complete with a helmet and balaclava. I nodded to him and said, “I am, I contacted your boss on the radio before it went dark… guess now I know why he didn’t respond to us after we got out of the hospital.”

“Where are the others? I thought you were with a group of people?” He asked next.

I crossed my arms as my wounds continued to heal, and I started to feel my energy coming back bit by bit. “We got separated on our way out, they took an elevator and I was tackled by a hound, got forced to find another way out.”

_ Cindy and the others are probably okay… if they’re not stupid about it, they should be fine. _ I thought as the man looked around the carnage.

“Well, hopefully we’ll find them.” He added and looked off into the streets. “Didn’t expect something like this when we got deployed, but what can you do?”

I shrugged and checked my revolver. “Take it as it comes, is all I can really say. I wasn’t expecting a zombie outbreak to happen just as I finished moving in, but oh fucking well I guess, ha!”

I shook my head and walked over to one of the jeeps and decided to check it as Navarro tried to figure out a plan. The jeep’s overall look reminded me of the ones from Jurassic Park, but it had an olive green coloration and the UBCS logos on the doors, and had a mounted .50 caliber MG on the back of it. The other jeep was the same, but had been completely destroyed by Nemesis’ chaingun.

The body that lay in that one had some gear still left on him, and ignoring the potential war crime of looting, I ventured over and checked him out.

The man had suffered a lot of bullets to the chest, completely ripping him open. It was disgusting and the smell was strong, but I ignored it in favor of eyeballing the shoulder holsters he had.

Seems every UBCS still held that private contractor mindset and outfitted themselves however they saw fit, and this guy just so happened to be carrying the same model revolver I was in a duel holster set up, but he was missing the other one.

It was in pretty good shape too.

I undid the clasps on the harness and decided I’d wear it for the time being. It was a little bloody and no one seemed to give a damn, barely even giving me a look as I strapped it on and holstered the revolver I was carrying. Luckily for me, he had some spare ammo for his as well, quite a few rounds in some speedloaders.

Perfect.

“Alright,” Navarro finally spoke up, drawing our attention. “I don’t know what the fuck command was thinking, but we still got a mission to uphold.” She told her men. “We’re going to continue the search and rescue operations in the city, get as many out as we can and contain this outbreak to the best of our abilities.”

_ Sounds like a plan to me, but I’m not UBCS so I don’t have much reason to follow that. _ I thought for a moment about my apartment, was it even still in the city? If it was, then my stuff was still there, including my other guns.

“Gather up what you can and load it into the Deuce.” She told the two men before pulling up her radio. “Serena, Riggs, Black, Pardons, Perez. Hamilton is dead, I’m assuming command over Alpha Platoon and I’m issuing an order to fallback and regroup at Alpha Point. Squads C through F, if you’re still alive and reading this, continue with the search and rescue operations and kill any mutant fuck you see, over and out.”

I listened to the sound of gunfire in the city for a spell before speaking up. “So even with a whole squad gone, you’re going to remain in the city then? Keep rescuing people?”

“You’re goddamn right I am.” Navarro told me as she closed the gap between us, but not by much. “This city is a warzone and I want to get as many people out as I can. I’m not going to let some giant fucking monster with a minigun stop me.”

I didn’t plan on stopping her either. Maybe it was how she spoke, or that look in her eyes… I don’t know. “If you want to do that, go right ahead.” I adjusted my cap. My body stopped aching, nothing hurt as much, it seemed that spray did the trick in speeding up the healing process.

“We’re getting out of this city as soon as the operations are complete, you’re not a bad shot either so stick around.” She told me.

I wasn’t expecting that from her. “You trust me to help you guys out? Even though I’m not a soldier?” I raised an eyebrow to that.

“We’re all mercenaries, kid. I don’t give a fuck what you do or where you came from, long as you can shoot a gun straight.” Navarro shrugged her shoulders as Baker and the driver went to work loading up the truck. “If those  _ zombies _ or whatever get big enough, we’re gonna need all the guns we can get.”

“Sergeant, the truck’s loaded up and ready to go.” Baker told her as the driver jumped into the cab. “We’re good to go when you are.”

“Good.” Navarro started for the humvee and climbed into the driver’s seat as Baker joined her. She then looked to me, “can you drive a stick shift?”

I thought back to my life’s goal when she said that; a lot of cars I wanted to collect are stick shifts, so naturally... “I mean… yeah, I drive a lot of older cars that use stick shifts.”

“Take that jeep and follow us, we’re headed to a more secure location.” She told me. “We’ll need that gun on the back if we’re gonna to protect the evac point.”

I looked at the jeep as the engines started up, and I walked over and climbed into it. It didn’t have doors on it or a roof, just a bare bones basic jeep. Thankfully it still had the key in it, so I turned it over and started her up. The engine rumbled as Navarro took the humvee and drove it out onto the road and the M35 followed.

Once I had the jeep warmed up, I put it into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, away from the carnage. A brief glance back showed me that they had looted the bodies as well, taking spare ammo, guns, even the radios, just leaving behind tattered uniformed bodies.

The jeep rumbled as I pulled out onto the road and followed behind the soldiers. I kept my revolvers unclasped in case I needed to pull one of them out quick, I was pretty out in the open so if I got grabbed it was game over.

We passed by a lot of the inner-city carnage on our way south, where we took different streets to get to where we needed to go. A lot of stray undead roamed around, some following after us but being too slow to be too much of a serious threat to any of us… more so me than the others.

Too exposed, too out in the ope-

A loud crack boom sounded, which was immediately followed by sparks flying from the hood of my jeep and the engine catching fire. Smoke plumped upwards and it sputtered, fire began to spread.

“Shit!” I swerved off of the road as I lost control, and ended up crashing into a light pole.

Thankfully not as hard as my other car.

Another gunshot whizzed by my head and I jumped out of the jeep, taking cover behind it and pulling out my revolver.

_ “We got contact! Fuck!” _ I heard Navarro yell from her radio, but from a quick glance, they just sped up.

_ “Who the fuck is shooting?!” _

_ “Just speed up and keep moving! We’ll worry about it later!” _

I love being abandoned.

Another gunshot hit the jeep as fire engulfed the engine, burning brightly and slowly spreading to encompass the cab itself. I cursed and looked around, I needed a way out of this, an escape route!

An alleyway next to me, but if this sniper was a good shot I was done for if I jumped out into the open.

Another gunshot and I quickly jumped up, sprinting for the alleyway and running down it.

It was narrow, with boarded up doors and trash cans, junk, and poorly made barricades blocking my route.

But I made it through and out of the line of fire.

_ Damn it, just one thing after another it seems. _ I took note as I continued to run down the alleyway. Fuck me running, I just wanted out of this damn hell hole alive!

Once I emerged out into the next street, I discovered some familiar sights. Namely the apartment buildings around me, and more specifically, the one shady looking apartment off to the far left of me surrounded by cop cars.

My apartment building.

A few undead cops were out front alongside some random civilians, only a few at most. I remembered I had brought some guns with me when I moved out this way on my way to Nevada, so if no one fucked with my apartment, then…

I pulled out my revolver and approached it, and once the undead spotted me I opened up.

I didn’t let excitement get to me, I took my time and aimed my shots as well as I could to down as many of them as I could. I knew their secret; headshots, then again that was any enemy ever, but in particular it was the undead who suffered the most from it.

One after the other, I killed them all; my shots took off chunks of their skull and disabled some, and I killed the others.   
  


A few needed more than one shot, but the .357 did its job of absolutely penetrating and destroying their brains.

They dropped like flies and I was able to get to the front steps of my apartment building. A quick reload later and I pulled out my cell phone, before turning on the flashlight function. Now I was ready.

I approached the door and opened it up before heading inside.

It was still as bland as it was when I first moved in, but with everything going on now? Only seemed to amplify the worst of it all; the flickering light above, the drab colors, and the blood stains nearby only served to fuel the fear that dripped from the walls like water from leaky pipes.

I approached the claustrophobic stairs and made my way up them, carefully aiming my gun and flashlight up. I didn’t know how many people in here had turned, or died… or if anyone was even still alive in here.

I had to be on my toes.

Once I reached my floor - the third floor, I exited out onto the hall and found at least two of the doors left wide open. Though a cursory peek inside didn’t reveal much except thrashed furniture and blood stains.

Didn’t bode well for my neighbors.

My door was at the end of the hall, closest to the street. I approached the door and pulled out my key.

I unlocked the door.

It squeaked upon opening up and I peered inside, and found the lights were still on as I had left them.

No one had been inside, thankfully.

I shut the door and locked it and allowed myself to relax. I wiped my forehead of the rainwater and sweat before taking off my jacket and sitting down on the couch.

To think, yesterday or the day before, I had moved here.

“Fucking hell, so much has changed. What did I do?” I looked up at the ceiling, at  _ god _ . “Who did I piss off to suffer this bullshit?”

Blood covered my hands from the zombies I had killed and injured. Undead lives of people who could have survived had it not been for Umbrella. This was such bullshit cause here I was in the middle of all of it, like some kind of twisted fanfiction or something some asshole is writing.

I was wet, I was tired, and I was trapped in a video game world with no idea how to get out of it. I was stuck in this universe where bioterrorism was on the rise and would only continue well into the year I left behind.

I wasn’t going to give up however, I was just… so pissed right now.

I got up off of the couch and went into my bedroom, where I ducked down to my bed and pulled out a crate I had purchased to hold my firearms.

I undid the lock on it and flipped open the case to unveil the rifle I had within. I liked my firearms quite a bit, so when I discovered this one at a gunshow a while back, I had to get it.

I lifted up the old war rifle and remarked, “didn’t think I’d ever use you to kill zombies, but it’s better than nothing I suppose.”

An M91/30 Mosin Nagant, with some minor modifications to allow me to attach a scope to it in case I needed it. It required a little bit of fuckery with the gun itself, but it was worth it if you asked me, just a minor drilling point to attach a picatinny rail system.

I grabbed the kit I bought and prepared for it, alongside a small bag I used to deposit and pull out the loaded stripper clips I bought for it as well.

I set everything out on my bed, and made a quick list of what I had. Enough rounds to last me a while if I did it right; a cleaning and maintenance kit, the scope kit, along with some minor tools I packed away in a small pack.

I took this period of respite to rest and recuperate; namely by replacing my clothes and taking a quick shower.

It may have been a warzone outside and I was at danger of getting killed while in the shower, but I felt disgusting and if I was gonna die.

I’d rather do it while looking  _ fly _ as fuck.

I dried off quickly enough and gathered up a new set of clothes to wear. A pair of black jeans, a plain white t-shirt and shoes to go with my hoodie, the latter of which I had dried off alongside my baseball cap. I had gathered my backpack and filled it with what supplies I had, namely ammunition and whatnot before loading up my other shit.

Once I was dried off, clothed, and armed with my weapons, I went over to the window and out into the streets. I knelt down out of sight and carefully pulled the blinds aside to look outside; and I saw several undead were still wandering around. The rain had stopped thankfully, but the storm in the skies still rumbled and flickered with untamable power waiting to be unleashed.

I just had zombies to deal with alongside the hounds, but how long until the Hunters are released? Or the Lickers start appearing? Not to mention the Tyrants and other mutants unleashed to test their combat capabilities.

The whole city was a warzone to test bioweapons, and we were all trapped in the middle of it.

I made sure my rifle was loaded up; five rounds, I was ready to go.

I would follow Navarro to their evac point but she didn’t exactly give a clear idea of where it was. I could radio her, but what if whoever shot at us was listening as well? Which begged the question, who the fuck  _ shot _ at me?

A random civilian came to mind; a looter hoping for some quick loot or something. Maybe a USS Sniper trying to wipe out as many survivors as possible? I wasn’t sure.

The USS was a problem as well, I haven’t run into any of them yet… but their mission was a little more violent and involved the eradication of any evidence and the protection of facilities in Raccoon until things were settled.

In the end it didn’t matter, this city was toast one way or another.

“I gotta get out of this place somehow, but how? Where do I go?” I knew of several roads out, but could I make it to them in one piece? My overall goal was to escape the city like everyone else, but it seemed like some unnatural force was keeping me here. “I have to find a way out...”

I sighed and stood up before making my way to the front door. I was abandoned what little I had brought here, I had no way of carrying it all cause my car was fucking totaled. Not that they mattered much, it was material shit I could replace easily enough if I tried.

As I made my way out of the apartment and down into the lobby, a scenario crossed my mind.

I had no idea if I’d ever make it back to my world, and even if I did… I’d have nothing, no money, no home. I wasn’t going to move back home and there was no way I could explain all of this to my friends and former roommate, or even my family.

I could be stuck here in this world indefinitely if I escaped the city, stuck in a world where my identity didn’t exist, with no money, no home…

I paused as I stood on the front steps of the apartment building.

_ This could be a new beginning for me, a fresh start in an otherwise terror filled world. _

I glanced down at my rifle and guns, and looked off into the city. The city was still under siege, and as far as I knew, the RPD was not exactly in the middle of conducting search and rescue with the intent to stop looters, it looked like people were taking advantage anyway.

I took a deep breath…

I was on Park Street, near the sporting goods store I was  _ going _ to work before shit hit the fan. Time to appropriate some equipment for this.

I went down into the street and made a bee-line towards my former workplace. I kept my rifle ready to go and made my way down the street, pushing past failed barricades and abandoned junk to gather what I needed.

My first priority shouldn’t have been looting, it should have been  _ getting the hell out _ , but if i was right and I  _ was _ stuck in this universe with no way back home? I needed some insurance to ensure that when I did escape, my life wasn’t spent on the road and in the gutter.

The sporting goods store came up soon enough, and I made my way through the abandoned parking lot and towards the front of the smashed in store-front. Shattered glass greeted me, as did hastily blocked off doors and the looted innards. I didn’t see any bodies, or any zombies inside which gave me a bit of hope I could find what I needed.

I climbed in through the window and onto the broken glass. It crunched underfoot and I made sure to holster my rifle before pulling out a revolver to use, close quarters weren’t good for long-rifles.

The inside was thrashed and it looked like a great many had been in here to cause havoc and loot what they could. The front counter and registers were completely looted of anything worthwhile, so I made my way towards the aisles where the bags were, namely duffel bags and packs to carry sporting goods in.

I would need a bag or two for what I needed to do nearby.

I found some that would suit me perfectly; a double XL that was made to carry a lot of sporting gear and uniforms, whichever suited the person better.

I grabbed a few of them and made a quick pit stop into the baseball aisle, there I scoped out the bats before finding a nice thick wooden bat. It looked like good quality, so I gave it a few test swings and comfortable with it, I took it as well.

I then quickly made my way out of the store and into the lot.

Helicopters flew in and around the city, and from what my shitty eyes could see, they were Umbrella Corporation choppers, some military in the distance. After a moment, I saw an RPD chopper flying around with an RFD one behind it.

I inhaled deep and pulled out my rifle again and held it in one hand and my bat in the other, and took off into a light jog down the street, and headed south.

The street I was on was way different, with more blockades and more things that impeded my path. I pushed on regardless, either finding alternate paths through the cramped alleyways or climbing up and over some junk to get to where I was headed for.

I had the map of Raccoon all but memorized in my head so I had a rough layout of where everything was business wise, which included the bank of Raccoon City.

_ The thing is… _

When I arrived at the Ennerdale Parking Garage, I opted to move inside and climbed up to the second level to overlook the street where the bank was. I had the perfect vantage point from here, and after a cursory check to make sure I wasn’t surrounded or had any infected nearby, I pulled out my scope and used it to look at the scene.

_...The failed last stand of the RPD took place here. _

In the street I saw the dozen or so police cruisers set up, alongside SWAT vans. Some barricades had been set up around the area, though they had long since fallen. Nearby, I could see the station was still standing, but surrounded by a few undead trying to get inside. If I had to guess, this was a day or so before Leon eventually arrived here with Claire.

A lot of zombies surrounded the Johnson National Bank, most of them former officers of the law while others were UBCS squad members, civilians… It was a chaotic looking scene.

But I had a rifle, and a scope to boot.

I quickly took out my kit and went to work attaching the scope, which took little time. Once it was on, I steadied the rifle and counted just how many undead were down there, blocking my route to the hospital.

Between them and the bank inside, I had to wonder if I would need any special tools to get to what I needed; safety deposit boxes, the vault itself.

I chuckled and eyeballed the bank.

_ Is this what being a master thief is like? _

I knew there was a hardware store nearby that might have what I need, just a block down the road. So if I managed to get past all of the zombies and make it inside of the building, I would need to make it past the security measures to get to the vault, and open it up somehow.

I snorted and stood up, better make sure I have the tools just in case.

I left the parking garage and made my way east towards the hardware store. A few undead stood in my way, which I easily dispatched with my baseball bat. A solid  _ crack _ to their skulls brought them down to knee level and disoriented them enough that I could give them another solid hit on the head.

It took a few heavy hits for me to kill them, they wouldn’t go down easy but I didn’t let that stop me from my secondary goal here.

I made it to the hardware store just in time to hear gunfire from nearby. It was a semi-auto, so I assumed it was possibly some survivors. I didn’t give it much thought, instead I focused on the hardware store and the open door.

I shouldered my rifle and pulled out my revolver and held it in tandem with my bat before heading inside.

The inside was abandoned like everywhere else in the city, but despite that, I was careful as I hunted down the tools I might need for the bank itself. Thankfully I had one of the bags to help me load up what I knew would help me get inside the vault and the boxes that held personal valuables.

I found a collection of large tools that would help; a few large cordless hand-drills, buzz saws, some of which I packed up with the batteries and such and stuffed them into the bag… which was already beginning to prove too heavy for me to carry several blocks through a literal war zone.

I had to think, so I exited the building and started looking around in the street. Most of the cars were busted up, crashed, ruined, shot up, or burned out from the outbreak. I grumbled and checked around the alleyway behind the building, and I was in luck!

Sitting around the back was an 84 Chevy Silverado 4x4, a pretty decent looking pickup truck that had some power to it. I approached it and found the cab was left open, and on the ground… a body of an employee of the shop.

He wasn’t moving, either dead or a sleeper.

I raised my bat when I approached, and just as I got close enough he moaned and sprang to life. He snapped his jaws at me and tried grabbing my legs, which I was quick to avoid and back pedaling.

I didn’t hesitate to pull out my revolver and aim it at his skull.

“Not playing this game, sorry bud.”

**_BOOM_ **

His head exploded into a shower of gore and chunks of brain, and he fell still. I crouched down and turned him over before checking his pockets.

I wasn’t against looting the dead.

After finding the truck keys in his pocket, I also found his wallet. His ID as well showed he was my age, born in 1973. That gave me a bit of an idea, so I tucked it away alongside the cash he had stuffed in his wallet as well.

After that I climbed into the truck and started it up. It rumbled and I grinned before pulling out onto the street where a few zombies were beginning to wander in from nearby. They probably heard the gunshot.

“Gotta make this quick.” I pulled out my revolver again and aimed at the few who gathered around and I shot them down, headshots to each one before I ran inside the store.

I hauled out the bag full of tools and extra shit I needed and tossed them into the back, then climbed into the cab. I closed the door and backed up before speeding off down the road towards the parking garage nearby where I had a plan in mind.

It was time for a bank heist.


	4. Partner in Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After makin the decision to take advantage of the chaos and rob the city's bank, he finds his heist venture taking him to a place where he makes a partner in crime.

I had run pretty far down Ennerdale street to get to the hardware store. I was a far distance away and near the high school nearby, which I was driving by right now.

The building in the city wasn’t exactly like most inner-city school buildings; it had a well kept lawn, the building was in decent enough shape for what was going on, though I did take notice of the wrecked school bus near the front and the one police car nearby. Curiously enough, I saw flashes of light coming from inside on the second floor.

Gunfire, I figured.

My truck slowed to a stop, almost an absentminded thought of mine.

A lot of survivors were in this city and I was going the lone wolf route, but I could be helping out people wherever they were with what I knew.

Yet I was focused instead on cracking open a bank for a scenario of getting  _ stuck _ in this universe indefinitely.

As the truck pulled to a complete stop, I sat there thinking for a moment.

_ Should I be helping people out? It’s obviously the right thing to do, but at what cost and to what end? _ I helped Cindy and her crew out, but they were most likely underground by now, either in the sewer system or already in the Hive of Umbrella Corporation’s secret lab used for the G-Virus, among other unsavory critters.

“It’s a fucking school… odds are everyone’s long dead or turned by now, why am I even thinking about this?”

My sight drifted once again to the second floor, and I saw more of those flashes again, periodic ones that told me someone was fighting for their life there.

_ Damn my bleeding heart. _

My truck revved up and I peeled out before pulling onto the lawn of the school, near the front entrance. I jumped out and left my rifle inside the cab and grabbed my bat in its place. I made sure my revolvers were ready before I jumped up the stairs.

I kicked open the door of the school and went inside.

I was greeted with the sight of bloodied lockers, flickering lights, and bullet holes in the walls and doors. I could hear muffled gunfire from the floor above, and groans nearby, which meant the undead  _ were _ in here somewhere. I had light, so thankfully I could see where I was going and who I’d be shooting.

“Alright, let’s do this.” I took a deep breath and ventured deeper inside.

I kept my revolver up and bat to the side as I waded through dropped books, devoured bodies, and the stench of death that filled the halls. The walls were painted in cries for help, handprints, and splatters of crimson. Doors were torn open, class rooms a mess of turned over chairs and desks, scenes of devastation that persisted throughout the building.

I found the stairs after a moment, which was blocked by a few undead in school uniforms. I hesitated for the first time since ending up here.

I didn’t know why, but something kept my finger from pulling the trigger.

A boy and two girls. They were halfway through their teens and here they were, eyeballing me like I was a five course meal readied to be devoured.

They were just  _ kids. _

_ Shit, don’t hesitate, open fire you fucking idiot! Shoot them! _ A voice screamed, the logical side of me.

I had to.

I had  _ to! _

I steadied myself and I pulled the trigger.

Boom went my revolver, echoing off of the walls before the bullet ripped through the shoulder of one of the three, jostling her and sending her stumbling back as the other two closed in.

I backed up and fired again. The bullet impacted the first in the jaw as my heart started pounding in my chest and sweat began pouring down my face, my stress levels were rising.

I fired again and again until he fell to the ground, dead, leaving only the two girls.

_ Don’t get sentimental you bastard! _

**_BOOM_ **

Went my revolver again, blowing a hole through the first girl; a blonde with piercings. She dropped to the floor and left the one I shot in the shoulder.

My revolver clicked empty, and I shoved it into my holster before preparing my bat. I tried steeling my nerves for what was to come next an-

**_BOOM_ **

A sharper crack sounded from the stairs above and the girl dropped for the floor, smashing her face in on the hardwood floor.

I froze as some of her blood splattered onto my clothing and face. I blinked and looked up and I saw a police officer, handgun raised.

Barrel smoking, he eyeballed me. “You alright?”

“I… y-yeah.” I nodded and relaxed as best as I could. I shook and froze up, I shouldn’t have done that, I could have gotten fucked up! Damn it.

“Hey, is it over?” Came another voice, a girl’s. From behind the officer I saw a young girl in a high-school cheerleader’s uniform.

“Yeah…” The officer told her and lowered his gun, and I lowered my bat.

“Are you two the only ones in here?” I asked them after a moment. “I saw the flashes from your gun from outside when I was driving by.”

“It’s just us.” He told me as he limped down the stairs, and it was then I noticed how bloodied his uniform was, especially around his leg and arm, where the fabric was torn into. “Lost my partner a few hours ago, he got mauled by those damned things.”

I winced. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be, he was a prick anyway.” he spat and held his arm, and I saw the crude bandaging he had made.

I eyed it for a moment and then him. “You’re hurt?”

“Got bit by one of those damn things, on my arm and leg.” He showed me the bite on his arm in question, deep and bloodied, and torn open.

He was infected.

“Quick hospital visit should help.” He commented as he stepped down onto the floor, the girl following right behind him.

Hospital? Oh boy. “Hey uh, officer… sorry to tell ya about this, but the hospital’s a no go.” I shook my head, prompting stares from both of them.

“What do you mean?” The girl asked me.

“I just came from there a few hours ago… I think? It’s been a while since I kept track of the time.” I chuckled sheepishly. “I was in a car crash and woke up there, the place is overrun by these things… I barely got out of there alive.”

“Not possible.” The officer started and I began to grow nervous. “W-we have police guarding that place 24/7 with some of the best gear we got, n-no way would a-any of these things overrun it!”

“Buddy, I’m telling the truth.” I tried to tell him. “The hospital is  _ gone _ , everyone in there is dead. I saw it with my own eyes, there’s no getting any medical help there at all… the staff are either dead or turned into those things.”

The girl looked over to me. A curious glint shimmered in her eyes and she asked, “Do you know how they turned?”

They didn’t know? “It’s a virus in the water.” I explained carefully. “From what I heard, it spread throughout the water from some kind of chemical spill and infected thousands within the first few days… then it spiraled out of control.”

“That’s insane… how did-” The girl started, but was silenced by the officer.

“Who gives a damn.” He started and pointed the gun to his own head. “All you need is a good headshot and they’re down, that’s all I need to know.”

This guy had lost it… Jesus.

“Buddy, calm down, alright?” I urged, and focused on the revolver in my right holster, the one still loaded. “Yeah, headshots kill them. A headshot will kill you if you don’t stop aiming that thing at your own he-”

“Don’t…!” He started and the handgun found its way being pointed at me. “...tell me what to do, got it?”

I held up my hands and backed up. “It’s all good man, no worries.”  _ This guy is off his rocker, I can’t stay here… the infection’s deluding his mind, and his senses… fucking hell, I just had to ‘help.’ _

“Rick, we should listen to the guy.” The girl started slowly, stepping out beside him. “He’s not here to do anything, he just wants to help!”

She may have said that, but I could see it in her eyes, she knew this guy was crazy. “Bud, those wounds might be infected… you should put the gun down before someone gets hu-”

“Only one getting hurt is you if you don’t shut up!” He shouted, gun shaking in his hand as the girl backed away. “That’s what my partner said, said I should  _ calm down _ and now look at him! He’s fucking  _ dead _ because he wasn’t focused like I was!”

I backed up again. I wouldn’t be able to draw my gun fast enough to shoot him, if I made any sudden moves he’d shoot me dead. I didn’t need a bullet wound, not now and preferably not ever if I could help it.

“Look, just… let’s get out of here, I’m sure we can find you some help and get your wounds treated!” I offered him. “I have my truck outside, let’s get out of here and jump in, and we’ll ge-”

“Is it even your truck?! Actually, where’d you g-get those guns?!” He stalked towards me and before I knew it, he pulled back the hammer on his gun. “Put the bat down!”

“Bud-”

“Put the goddamn bat down or  _ I will shoot you! _ ” He bellowed as he aimed at me, more steadily this time.

I dropped the bat and held my hands up. “You don’t wanna do this man, jus-”

“Shut up!” He stalked towards me and I didn’t have much choice before he got behind me and kicked in my legs, forcing me to my knees. My hands were forced behind my back, and I felt the cold steel of his handcuffs clasp around my wrists and the click of them locking. A beep sounded next, and he said, “This is Officer Rick Sanchez, I have a looter in custody! Request evac at Raccoon Highschool!”

I heard a beep-beep… but no response came through, only static.

“Please advise! I have a looter in custody!” Still no response. Did this guy even know the extent of what was happening? “I’ll just bring you over to the station!”

“Dude, seriously? There is a fucking war going on right now! We don’t have time for th-”

My vision went white and pain shot through my skull. I heard a cry from the girl and my body began moving, my ears rang as I was lifted up. I could hear Rick speaking and the girl too, but I couldn’t understand them.

Outside, we were… outside?

We were headed outside?

Before I knew it I was back out in the city, and carted through the lawn to… something.

Against a metal surface, a thunk sounded and I was pulled away before shoved into something.

“You have the right to remain silent, anything you say… aw fuck.” I heard him say finally, and something shut.

My vision cleared out and I saw I was in the back of a police cruiser, specifically the one I had seen driving up. The officer had lumbered away to the front of the cruiser before opening the door, and he reached inside before grabbing the shotgun.

“F-fuck… dude, don’t leave me in here!” I yelled at him. “These things are all over the goddamn city, they’ll break in here and kill me!”

“Shut up!” He slammed the door and the girl who followed him was looking all around, and I noticed that a lot of the undead were closing in from around. He was going insane, and started firing off shotgun slugs at the ones who got too close.

I cursed and acted fast. I moved my body around and slid my cuffed hands behind my back, down towards my legs, and using my flexibility, I managed to get my hands down and around the front so I could better use them. I had no key, or any tool on me that I could use to pick them open.

Fuck, I should have kept a screwdriver or something!

I can’t shoot them off either, I’d either take off my hand or injure myself.

Damn it!

I knocked on the glass as the girl got closer, and I yelled, “Get me out of here!” I banged my fists on the glass. “That dumbass has gone insane!”

She caught sight of me after a few moments, we locked eyes and I gestured to the door and my cuffs. I had to get out of here,  _ we _ had to get out of here or this idiot was going to get us both killed!

She looked between me and him, as if weighing her choices on which was the better option.

I hoped she wasn’t a dumb bimbo cheerleader, that would  _ really suck. _

_ Damn it, don’t be an idiot, he’s clearly gone insane! _ I banged on the glass, but after a moment I just climbed over the front seats and tried to open the passenger side door. This thing was an old 80s Caprice, so it didn’t have the guard mesh like modern cop cars did.

The door was unlocked! He didn’t have time to lock it, so I opened the door and out onto the grass where I pulled out my revolver.

Fucker thinks he can just lock me up? Fat fucking  _ chance _ .

I crept to the trunk side of the cop car, taking deep breaths and readying myself for potentially having to kill a man.

An  _ insane _ man, but regardless.

Once I was ready, I waited until the next shot fired before I jumped up and aimed.

… I then found a shotgun barrel pointed directly at my face, and a fresh shell pumped into the chamber.

“Resisting arrest!” He yelled.

I tried to fire, I tried to react somehow but I froze again!

A loud cry followed by a wooden  _ thunk _ immediately sounded, and Rick fell to the ground  _ hard _ .

Behind him stood the girl, with my bat.

_ Thank Christ, she’s not stupid. _

I relaxed as she lowered the bat. I knelt down by Rick’s KO’d body and quickly went to work fishing out the handcuff keys.

“Thanks kid, I owe you one.”

“He… I...” She stammered and dropped the bat.

“He was  _ fucking insane. _ ” I assured her as the keys came out, and I uncuffed myself. “He’s infected with whatever virus is floating around, it clouded his mind so don’t feel too bad.”

I made it a point to take the cuffs and stash them away, alongside his duty belt, handgun and shotgun. I put on the belt around my waist and tucked the gun away alongside the cuffs, and went over to the cop car.

The coast was clear, thankfully. Despite his insanity, he was a pretty good shot.

I made sure to grab whatever shells and other shit he had stashed in the car and tucked those away into my jeans cargo pockets. I didn’t find much else except a spare magazine for his handgun, which I took.

I was pretty stocked up on ammo and guns, which I felt was a good thing. I nodded after clearing out the car and I turned to the girl.

I shrugged and looked at my truck, and slowly started for it. “Listen… I don’t plan on staying here, I got plans and I don’t know i-”

She stopped me quickly, “can I come with you?” She asked almost immediately. The girl had her hands behind her back, and was staring at me through her bangs with shimmering eyes.

I paused halfway to the truck and peered back at her. “What about your parents? Your family? You don’t want to find them?”

Her head hung low before shaking side to side. “My dad was in the school with me when this was happening, we were having a special kind of… class thing with our parents but...”

She swallowed hard and I winced.

I couldn’t imagine what that must have felt like.

“I…” ‘I’m sorry’ was pointless to say, it meant nothing half the time. I slowly reached over and patted her on the shoulder, drawing her eyes. I jerked my head towards the truck. “I got room in the truck, let’s go.”

We didn’t give the school a second look before jumping into the truck and driving off, leaving behind Rick to suffer his fate.

It was cold to do, but…

I had other plans.

* * *

We left the property of the school and I had taken her back to my vantage point on the second floor of the parking garage overlooking the bank. I also made sure to take stock of my new guns, and optimized my loadout so I could get to what I needed and quickly if the need arose.

“You’re going to do  _ what? _ ”

I also explained to her what it was I was going to do, which garnered that reaction.

“I’m going to break into the bank.”

“So you’re a criminal then?”

“Err… not exactly.” I admitted, cautiously. “I woke up in the hospital, I wasn’t lying about that or anything. I just… realize an opportunity when I see one.”

I didn’t tell her the extreme details, like  _ who _ I was as well as where I had come from.

“Why break into the bank anyway?” She was sitting on a box and had crossed her legs, before leaning forward and staring at me through her bangs.

The girl was an  _ absolute knockout _ if I had to say anything about her; in highschool so she was definitely young, the outfit she wore was for cheerleaders and was especially generous in how much it showed the audience, especially around her cleavage which I noticed was rather busty for her age, if I had to give her a cup size I’d say she was a hefty C-Cup. She had long shoulder length brunette hair, and bright green eyes I couldn’t help but take notice of.

“I lost everything in a fire.” That I lied about, but she didn’t have to know, nor did anyone else. “Which included my stash of money I had kept out of the bank. If I ever get out of the city, I doubt I’m going to get any relief alongside the thousands of others who need it… I need some insurance when I get out of here and that bank has it.”

“So you’re going to rob a bunch of dead people’s bank accounts and savings?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

After loading in another shell in my shotgun, I nodded. “You’re goddamn right I am, I am not spending the rest of my life in poverty one I get out of this hell hole. I need some cash to ensure that when I escape, I can provide for myself and stay afloat for a long while.”

It was a solid plan as long as the truck remained intact, and I didn’t lose whatever it was I found. It would be a sinch, I had the tools needed to break in there, just needed to clear the way first. I looked down below and noted a few more zombies had joined in, and were feasting on the corpses left behind.

“I want in.”

I blinked and turned back around to look at the girl. “I’m sorry,  _ what? _ ”

She clicked her tongue and leaned forward, either on purpose or accidentally letting me peek down her shirt. “My whole life is  _ gone _ here, all of my friends are dead or zombies, my parents are gone, my home is lost… if I get out of here they’re going to put me in an orphanage or something!”

Orphanage...?

“How old  _ are you? _ ” I asked her. I didn’t really care though as I looked down her shirt, but I made it as subtle as I could.

“I’m fifteen.” She told him. “I’m still a teenager, when I get out of here I’m screwed...” She looked away for a moment and huffed, inhaling deeply through her chest and causing it to tighten around the middle before he exhaled. “I don’t want to go into the system...”

That was rough; lost her parents, her friends, and she’s at risk at being an orphan if this keeps up. I peered down at the bank, and grumbled something to myself. Damn it.

“Aight… I’m not a stingy bastard so I’ll split whatever it is I find in there with you.” I told her. “Hell, we can get out of the city together and you can stay with me,” I told her and drew her attention back to me. “Not trying to be creepy here or anything, I’m just saying… being in the system is a rough time, but we can play it off that you’re my younger sister and you can stay with me.”

“I… seriously?” Her eyes opened wide before I pulled out one of the revolvers and pushed it into her lap. “I...”

“Look… I’m not like most adults, I’m not a fucking idiot that’s gonna try to preserve your innocence or some shit.” I sat up and locked eyes with her. “This city is going to hell in a handbasket, and if we’re going to get out of here? We might as well make off like bandits… I know for a fact that no one will ever find out about this, so as long as we’re careful and we do this right… we’re gonna be rolling in enough money to set ups back for a bit.”

The girl swallowed hard before looking down at the gun, and she nodded slowly. “O-okay, got it… I’m in.” She gave me a grin. “When do we start?”

I made my way over to the truck and pulled out my Mosin, and after making sure a round was chambered I walked over to the overlook. “I’m going to clear the way, with you here, I want you to watch my back and make sure no one and nothing is about to sneak up on us.”

After taking up position, I took in the sights and zeroed in on my first target.

“I… okay, I’ll keep watch.”

I nodded and took steady breaths. There were a lot of cops down there, and most were wearing SWAT armor and helmets, which may or may not stop the 7.62x54r round. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t exactly have many opportunities to test its penetrative power.

But they were in no way bullet proof from what I understood about riot control helmets.

So I should be good.

After focusing on one target, I slowly led the target before I pulled the trigger.

A loud crack sounded, echoing throughout the streets before the shot impacted the first undead. His head snapped back violently, and he dropped to the ground.

The other zombies didn’t seem to pinpoint where the shot came from and continued onward as I cycled the next round.

Easy enough…

_ I’ve been racking up a lot of kills since I’ve been here, seems unreal. _ I half wondered if this was some kind of coma dream. Maybe I  _ didn’t _ wake up from my car crash, I just hallucinated up to this point and I’m actually in a coma.

**_CRACK-BOOM_ **

A riot zombie went down, taking a shot right through the middle of his helmet, shattering the front of it and sending chunks of black and red through the back before he dropped.

I sighed. Even if it was a coma dream, at least I got to enjoy a really weird experience in one of my favorite franchises.

I repeated this process of firing and cycling until I expended the entire five rounds. I had dropped five zombies, leaving only a handful of them in the street.

“Not many left now, how are we looking?” I asked the cheerleader as I fished out a stripper clip.

“No one’s around, the garage is still empty.” She told me and I peeked back at her and noticed she was fanning her untucked shirt. I saw hints of pale skin underneath before she hiked up her skirt, and for a brief moment I saw her ass as she adjusted the underwear she wore.

I turned back and looked back down at the street.  _ Well goddamn for fifteen she’s got a serious rack and one hell of an ass. _

She was fifteen and I was already creeping on her. I couldn’t exactly help it, she was pretty damn cute.

After loading in the next five rounds, I continued to clear out the street as carefully as I could manage with the rounds I had.

A lot of people were here at one point and a fuckton of zombies, but it was relatively clear right now until my gunshots brought in more of them… but hopefully the loud echo would keep them from pinpointing where in the city it was coming from.

Before long and about ten more rounds, the street was clear save for about two. I didn’t feel the need to waste more rounds and instead reloaded before heading to the truck.

“Alright, it’s clear enough so let’s head down there.” I told the girl and loaded up everything into the truck’s cab.

After jumping into the cab, she followed and gave the revolver back to me. She then asked me while I started up the truck, “so what’s your name?”

The truck rumbled and I put it into gear before pulling out of the parking garage, driving down the one level to get back onto the street. “My name?”

“I’m Cathy.” She smiled and brushed some of her hair back behind an ear. “Cathy Henderson.”

“Huh, alright Cathy.” I gave her a smirk in return and said, “name’s Dutch.”

An eyebrow raised. “Dutch?”

“Aye.”

“Doesn’t sound like your real name.”

“Oh it is, just not in the way you expect it.” I told her as I pulled up to the bank… rapidly, I sped up and rammed into the one zombie in front, slamming him against the hood and crushing him under the front. I moved the truck just right so the bed faced the bank’s front door. “Alrighty, let’s head inside.”

She gave me a look as I climbed out with the shotgun. A shell was already primed and ready, and I aimed at the other zombie nearest to me and opened up on him; a blast to the chest that sent him flopping over the hood of a cop car. I fired another slug into his head, blowing it clean up.

I let out a sigh and pumped another shell into the chamber as Cathy came around. “There’re a lot of guns lying around, grab one if you want. You won’t get far if you don’t learn to protect yourself now.” I told her as I started towards the entrance of the truck, and after hefting the bag of tools out, I started for the entrance.

Cathay joined me after a second and I saw she had grabbed a handgun, a Browning High Power; standard issue RPD sidearm.

Not a bad choice.

“You know how to use it?” I asked her as we approached the door.

“I… I’ve been shooting with my dad a few times, he taught me a little bit.” She told me, as she pulled back the slide a bit to check the brass, then allowed it to slide back forward. She also showed she knew proper trigger discipline.

I liked her already.

“Alrighty, sis. Let’s get this done.”

I opened the door to the bank; it was unlocked, and proceeded inside.

Surprisingly it was empty, devoid of any undead or survivors. The door creaked open and we both ventured inside, and we didn’t hear a single noise. No alarm, no people… nothing.

I immediately grew nervous, the anticipation and anxiety of what we were about to do suddenly unraveling itself before us.

We were about to pull off possibly the easiest bank heist in the history of  _ ever. _

The vault was in plain view and sat behind a wooden partition, and all of the kiosks and desks were closed up tight and locked up. The vault itself was obviously locked up, but getting inside shouldn’t be too hard… hopefully, I had no idea if the tools i brought would be enough to crack it.

“Wow… I can’t believe it.” Cathy commented and started to smile wide, and she started to chuckle. “I’m about to rob a  _ bank. _ ”

“Hopefully.” I told her as we approached the vault door. “It’s a big door and the tools I got are just regular power tools. I wasn’t exactly able to get bigger stuff to crack it open with, just these.” I hefted the tools up and sat them down in front of the vault door. I took a look at the hinges that were held onto the door and eyeballed them for a moment. “Mmm… could try cutting through those with the power saw I brought.”

“So we have no guaranteed way of getting inside?” She asked me, but her smile didn’t fade.

“Sadly, no, not unless the keycard for the vault and the code just happens to be lying around in the office of this bank somewhere.” I remarked and knelt down before looking through the tools of mine.

“Hmm...” I heard Cathy murmur before she stepped away.

I had a power saw, some drills, handsaws, basically a lot of cutting and drilling equipment that could easily break through a lot of the security boxes held inside. I had enough bags too to grab as much as we could carry, but if it really came down to it I guess we could go snag some more bags.

If we decided to get greedy that is, but with how much money had to be inside of here? As well as valuables we could pawn off and sell? We’d make off like bandits if we pulled this off.

_ Just have to figure out how to do this easy enough. _

Hinges would probably be the way to go, cut through them with the power saw and loosen it up, grab the chain from the bed of the truck and find a way to attach it to the vault door’s front. Then we can just pull it with the truck, if that fails, use one of the SWAT vans outside for extra pulling power.

I didn’t know how many horses one of those step-vans had but maybe it had more than the pick up, and a sturdier rear bumper so the chain wouldn’t rip it from the chassis.

_ Robbing a bank is hard. _

I sighed and scratched my head before I heard approaching footsteps.

“So I have a plan-”

**_Beep beep beep_ **

I heard the click clack of locks opening and the sudden ker-thunk as the giant bolts moved free. I looked up in time to see the vault door swing open slowly and Cathy’s smug face looking at me from the keypad.

“...I’m sorry.” I slowly stood up. “ _ The fuck just happened. _ ”

“I found the office for the manager, and the keycard, as well as the keycode written down on a piece of paper.” She smiled and showed the items in question to me. “Manager was forgetful I guess, wrote it down so he wouldn’t forget it.”

“...I’ll accept this.”

I quickly gathered up the tools and wandered around to the opening of the vault door. Once it swung open completely, I saw the marble tables inside and the dozens of security lockboxes lining the walls, but in the middle on a large table, I saw quite the sight. Stacks of  _ cold hard cash money. _

“Chili, we hit the motherlode.” I grinned and went inside with Cathy behind me.

I set the tools and bags on the ground, and immediately went around to the boxes. They had simple keyholes, a quick drill job would crack them open. “Alright, you start loading up the cash into those bags, I’m going to crack open as many of these boxes as I can.”

“Oh my  _ god _ there’s so much.” Cathy remarked as she took a stack of money in her hands, stacks of hundred dollar bills, fresh from the reserve it looked like if I had to guess. “Holy shit.”

Banks in modern day, at least where I came from, banks didn’t carry stacks of cash in their vaults purely for this reason. There were probably hundreds of thousands just on that table and god knows how much in these boxes on the walls, each one varied in size, which meant different things of varying sizes were inside them.

We might need more bags for this.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” Cathy started to laugh as she sweeped in stacks of money into those large duffel bags.

I pulled out one of the hand drills and attached a fresh battery to it before shooting a look back at her. “Believe it, kid. We’re actually making off with everything in here, and there’s literally no one to stop us.”

I turned the drill on and started to work on the first of many boxes. The drill bit was one of about dozens I had brought with me, because I knew the bit would be stripped before much longer.

“Hell, I just moved up here and I’ve already lost my apartment and job, who’s to say once I get out of here I’m not going to be homeless? Fuck that.” I grunted against the lock. “I’m gonna need all the money I can get.”

The bit completely destroyed the lock though, and I was able to pull open the door and pull out the wooden box that held whatever it had inside.

Cathy chuckled as she fingered through the hundreds of dollar bills in the stack. “This is just insane… I never thought I’d be robbing a bank, let alone getting  _ away _ with it.”

I just chuckled as the box opened up, and inside I found a few documents here and there. But under the majority of the useless papers; most being birth certificates and the like, I found some jewellery stashed away, silver rings with gemstones inset into the top. “The city is being torn apart by war right now,” I told her as I pulled out every ring and necklace in the box, and set them out nearby. “Police are completely fucked with trying to evacuate civilians, the military’s too busy making sure no one gets in or out, and the UBCS aren’t too concerned with stuff like this.”

I pulled out a stack of money from the box, and held it up to Cathy.

“We do this right… we escape Raccoon with enough money to tide us over for  _ years. _ ”

I had never seen such a girl smile as brightly as she did. But she started to laugh, which filled the inside of the vault with her excitement as she started shoving the money into the duffel bags with glee fueled energy.

I shared it, though much more subdued than she was. I was certainly enjoying myself of course, as I ripped open another box, a much bigger one. The drill kept going, tearing into the lock before drilling straight through, I yanked on the lock and pulled the door free.

This vault was filled with dozens of these flat boxes, some wider ones, and some that had to hold plenty of juicy items we could stash away. There was already enough here that we wouldn’t have to worry about anything for a good long while when we escaped; we had enough money gathered up to live comfortably.

But greed suddenly crept its way through my head;  _ why just one bank? _ As I placed the box onto the table and ripped it open, I thought about the other banks in the city, with their vaults potentially untouched and absolutely  _ filled _ to the brim with cash and valuables, waiting to be taken by opportunistic individuals such as myself.

We had the tools, we had the drive, and as far as I knew we were several days away from the city actually being nuked to hell.

So we had more than enough time to hit up some other places if we wanted.

I almost salivated at the prospect of how much we were  _ getting. _

_ Oh yeah… this is good. _

  
  


I lost track of time, but I didn’t give a  _ fuck _ . Cathy had stashed all the money away and grabbed a drill to help out, and started going to town on all of the locks inside; tearing them open and pulling out box after box. Before much longer, we had them all open and had rifled through all of the contents.

Pendants and rings, bangles and necklaces, very precious and valuable jewels and even more cash stored away.

I even found some gold, silver and bronze jewelry in most of the boxes, all of them shiny and glimmering. The majority of them had jewels in them that only increased their value, rubies and sapphires, emeralds and diamonds. I honestly didn’t expect this bank would have much in the valuables department, but all of this? It was insane!

We also hit the ATMs inside, and the teller stations and cleared it out of everything, even the security office had some things we grabbed; ammunition alongside a couple of handguns and a shotgun.

We had amassed a lot of loot and were ready to head out.

“There’s so many pretty rings.” Cathy had commented as she hefted up some of the bags, she had taken one of the rings and was wearing it, a nice emerald one that fit her eyes.

I hefted up most of the bags and started heading outside. “We absolutely finished this bank off, hahaha!” I laughed as we headed outside where the sun was beginning to rise.

We were in there all night.

After gathering up everything and loading up the back of the closed bed of the truck; we jumped inside and relaxed. Thankfully we hadn’t drawn much attention, it seemed the majority of the zombies and monsters were elsewhere.

Good enough for me.

“Hey, uh… Dutch.” Cathy asked me as I started up the truck.

The engine rumbled to a start as the sun rose up higher, showing the battered city in all its glory. I turned to the girl and rose an eyebrow, “what’s up?”

“You just moved here… right? That’s what you told me earlier.” She asked and I nodded, then she smiled. “So you don’t know where a lot of things are?”

“I know where most places are but...” I narrowed an eye but started to smile myself, that smile of hers was getting me going.

“I know where there’s another bank and jewelry store if you wanna...” She fingered the ring and grinned wide. “Get some extra insurance money~”

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

“Lead the way, kid.”


	5. Hitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After successfully robbing their first bank, Cathy and Dutch make their way to the next couple of places to loot, but not before having some fun.
> 
> Sadly, there's a hitch in their plans.

Cathy was starting to become one of my favorites, and reminded me of the police fight where a lot of gear had been left behind.

On top of a fuckton of money and valuables, we made off with a lot of firearms and ammo. We were all but ready for a war.

She had led us through the city to the northeast where we discovered another bank, and seemingly out of pure luck, right across the street was a jewelry store. It looked like both had been untouched by the riots and fighting going on in the city.

I was a little more worried about this portion of the city; we had driven up north and made our way to Mission Street, close to the marshalling yard and one of the exits to the city. A lot of destruction filled the streets, as did bodies, some of which still moved. I was cautious, but at the same time, greed was fueling me right now.

Among other things.

The street had been the sight of a poor blockade, and as such, had some stuff left behind that we took advantage of. Cathy had started to learn quickly as we were looting the dead bodies and the cop cars and vans; she was starting to be careful and wasn’t hesitating with her handgun.

Definitely a good thing, but she was still a ways away from actually managing to fight back properly. Killing stuck zombies is one thing, they’re not moving and barely a threat! But taking on a hoard? Hundreds of undead coming at you all at once? That was something else entirely.

We approached the jewelry store and were prepared to go inside, tools at the ready before I noticed something odd.

We had been from the south of Raccoon to the north and didn’t encounter many undead, the most we found were stragglers or pinned corpses in wrecks and fallen barricades. Even that was strange, a lot of barricades, blockades and crashes, but we were able to get there with little issue.

I paused and looked out into the streets, where fires raged in the morning sunlight. I could still hear distant sirens, some sporadic gunfire, but… I didn’t  _ see _ anything.

This city had over a hundred thousand people in it, that was a big fucking number. I know most of them are dead, but the majority of them have mutated into the undead, among other such infected critters.

Where the fuck were they all at?

Sunday Brunch?

“Dutch?” Cathy drew my attention to her, where she stood by the front door of the jewelry store. “You alright?”

“Er, yeah… just thinking is all.”

“Thinking about robbing homes next?” She shot me an almost knowing smirk.

I chuckled and walked over. “Tempting as  _ that _ is, it’s the fucking opposite.” I approached the front door and peered inside, and I saw the metal shutters were down, and the place was locked up tighter than a nun’s legs in west Texas. “Damn, doubt we’re breaking in here.”

“Really?” I could almost taste the disappointment in Cathy’s tone, the excitement dribbled through still, but…

“Between the shutters and the doors, we’d have a hell of a time getting through. Plus we might set off an alarm and draw in a ton of the undead.” That was another thing, we were making a  _ lot _ of noise in the bank, but only drew in maybe a handful of zombies.

Cathy hummed as I started to move around the building, past some garbage before making my way around the back. “Yea, you’re right...”

The side of the building was smooth stone, but I saw some power boxes nearby. The bank was easy cause there was no one to trip any alarms, but here? They had them built in, trip something and boom.

The whole neighborhood knows.

“Could we get in through the roof?” Cathy wondered as she walked past me and gestured to a ladder leading up.

I eyeballed it myself for a moment; it was one of those collapsable ones. Strange that was it here, and even stranger that it led up to the roof of the store. “Huh… maybe, but why is that here?”

“Roof maintenance?” She tossed my way and I shrugged.

I tightened up my pack and climbed up, gun in hand. Once I reached the rooftop, I saw it had a few abandoned items laying around and nearby, a ventilation hatch that probably led inside the building through cramped air ducts.

I climbed over the partition and onto the roof, and walked across the gravel to check out the tools nearby. A lot of them were power tools like mine, different brands and such, but… these weren’t for roof repairs.

Blood was nearby as well, with a trail of it leading over to the other end of the roof and off the other side. I held my gun tight and followed the trail before peering over, where a giant pool of blood stained the ground, but… nobody there.

Whoever had fallen there was long gone.

“What do you see?” Cathy called from below.

“Power tools, blood, nobody though.” I informed her and went back over to help her up. “Looks like we may not have been the only ones with this idea.” I told her cautiously as I hefted her up and over.

She jumped over and landed perfectly; evidence to her skills as her school’s cheerleader member. I couldn’t help but take a little more notice of how her body looked as she walked around, the sway of her hips and how that skirt hugged her  _ just _ right, including her shirt which I had noticed she had unbuttoned a bit.

“So… were you any good at the cheerleader thing?” I asked her as I approached the hatch and looked it over, and noticed some scuff markings on the screws.  _ Definitely not the only ones. _

“Hmm? Oh yeah, definitely!” She laughed and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her throw up her leg pretty high before swinging it back, and then making a decent leap forward, and landing in a solid split on the ground. “I  _ was _ the cheer captain after all~”

“The captain, huh?” I remarked and looked over to her, she was pretty toned. That split too, she was pretty damn flexible, with nice long legs and a great ass, a busty chest.  _ Damn, I know I said it before but for a fifteen year old, she’s pretty filled out. _ “That’s pretty impressive.”

“I didn’t get to be captain just cause I’m pretty, ya know~” She teased, and I felt my heart begin to race. “I’ve seen you sneakin’ some peeks, mister.”

“Whaaaat?”  _ Shit, I got caught. _ “Nooo, you’re crazy.”

She leaned forward once she got behind me, and she whispered, “I think you’re pretty cute, just so you know, so I don’t mind you looking~”

_ Oh fuck. _ I wasn’t expecting to hear that, but I certainly didn’t mind one damn bit as I pulled out a drill. “Oh really now?” I kept my voice calm and shot her a tiny half smile.

She nodded and I swore I saw a hint of a blush on her cheeks, before she started to play with her hair. “You got me out of that lame school, and you’re not treating me like a kid like that Rick guy did.” She admitted as I turned on the drill and started to undo the screws. “You gave me a gun and trusted me to help you out, and you let me join you on this…  _ crazy _ heist adventure you’re doing, and cutting me in on the loot!”

As two of the four screws came out, I eyed the girl for a moment. “Well, I mean… it’s only fair, you’re helping me out, and I’m not gonna try and protect your innocence after all you’ve seen.” I chuckled and shook my head. “Besides, I said it before; once we escape the city, we need money to keep us afloat… it’s not my fault it just happens to be millions of dollars in cold hard cash and shit we can pawn off for more money.” I waggled my eyebrows before going back to the hatch.

“My point is, you’re awesome! And… I like you, so, yeah.” She blushed again and chuckled before spinning around and looking off somewhere.

Who would have thought being a bank robber would land me a cute cheerleader captain?

After the screws came off, the hatch came off with no problem and I tossed it aside.

“Alright, this is open… if it’s not fucked, we should be able to climb down this and into the store.” I started to explain before standing up. “The alarm shouldn’t go off from this, and once we get inside we should find the keys to the display cases and registers, just grab everything and climb back out.”

Cathy turned back to me and nodded, and we started down the hatch.

It was cramped as fuck, probably the tightest fit I’ve gone through, so I had to go first. Granted, Cathy was skinnier than I was, but I wanted to push the tools on through and get a headstart on whatever we found inside.

A rough twist and turn later, I found a hatch that was a bit difficult to open. I cursed and pulled out the screwdriver I brought, not enough room to pull out a power tool.

“Stupid vent covers.” I grumbled and started to work on it.

Morning time and here I was robbing a jewelry store, and then a bank right after that. What a crazy time to be alive, but I might as well take advantage of this, no cops, no security, just me, tools and lots of hard cash.

“You alright?” I heard Cathy’s voice behind me and some shuffling noises.

“Just a vent cover in my way.” I told her, and after some prying, I managed to break it enough to allow me to get my arm through and start unscrewing it.

It took some doing, maybe twenty minutes of fuckery and a lost screwdriver before I finally got it off. It fell to the floor and I pulled myself out, and carefully landed on the floor of the store.

I saw a little over a dozen or so display cases filled to the brim with precious gemstones, necklaces, rings and the like. I took a look around, and noticed that a lot of these were older looking, some of them were incredibly pricey as well, which meant they’d fetch a lot at some places if we did it properly.

Cathy came in and landed on the floor elegantly and smiled my way.

“So how do we do this?” She asked and walked over.

“Office is nearby, I’m hoping there’s a key in there for the display cases. If not? Well, I guess we smash and grab and get out as fast as we can if there’s an alarm.” I sighed and wandered around the building for a bit, half taking in what there was and half checking to see if I can open any of them.

Once I made it behind one of the cases, I saw the sliding partition there and gave it a shot.

It came open.

“Well shit.” I opened it up and tried the others, and found they opened too, no key needed.

“They’re open?” Cathy opened up some near her as well, sliding open little glass doors to get inside.

“Easier than I thought. Alright then, let’s load up everything that’s unlocked and move to the bank.” I told her and with her nod, we started clearing out the store.

The amount of jewels we collected was incredible; a little bit of everything that held some incredible value, rings, pendants, necklaces, bangles, anklets, tiaras and even some small crowns were being old in here.

Odd but I didn’t give a damn, I took everything that wasn’t bolted down.

Once I cleared out my end, I adjusted my bag and made my way to the office, where the door hung ajar.

In my adrenaline and excitement fueled thievery, I almost forgot I was in a zombie filled city.

I pulled out a Browning High Power I had tucked away on a hip holster I took from a dead cop and approached the door, before kicking it open and shining my equally scavenged flashlight inside.

I saw nothing inside, but it drew me in regardless.

I decided on a whim to check the room, from top to bottom in search of anything. The computer was turned off, so I didn’t bother with it. The desk was empty of anything save for some documents of customers, offenders, and orders for a shipment of jewels from some company.

The walls were lined with books and the like, some that didn’t exactly serve much purpose. A few names stuck out, familiar titles from my own world that I had either read or pondered picking up for shits and giggles.

“A Tale of Two Cities?” I hummed and ran a finger along the spine. “That’s one I’ve wanted to rea-”

I tugged on the book, but it only came halfway out before I heard a click sound.

Some mechanisms sounded in the walls, before something went clunk and unlocked.

_ Nani the fuck? _ I started to look around, but I had no idea what in the hall opened. The desk was clean, the rest of the bookcases didn’t look like the kind to pull out, but they were firmly attached to the walls.

My eyes were drawn to a single painting in the room, relatively small and depicting an older man standing next to a pretty red-haired woman. I eyed the painting for the longest time and ran my fingers along the side, and curiously enough… a small gap behind it.

I pulled.

The painting was  _ heavy _ as hell and swung open, and I saw that whoever put this up had attached the painting to a heavy safe door, blocking it from view. The safe door swung open and inside of it, I found quite the haul within.

I found a collection of items on the bottom shelf, mostly stacks of cash that had been collected. My eyes wandered to the top shelf, where I found something glimmering from my flashlight, something I wasn’t expecting a small time jewelry store owner to have stashed  _ inside _ the building.

Gold bars, three stacks of three, with a box made of wood next to it.

“Jesus Christ, this guy was loaded.” I pulled down the box; the least obvious thing and I was curious what was inside of it first.

It was heavy on one side, indicating it held something heavy. I popped it open and saw three rolls of gold and silver coins rolled up in a little holder. To the first, a large iron key and a piece of paper. I sat the box down on the desk and pulled out the paper and the key.

The paper had some writing on it:  _ ‘Best I keep my key here, don’t trust the wife at home to not mess with what I have stored in my safe. It’s risky hiding it here, but we’ve not had a robbery in this city since it was founded! It should be safe here, no one will get what I have in there...’ _

So he has something at his home then? Interesting. Shame I didn’t know the address, otherwise… well, it’d be the last place I’d go to to rob.

A knock on the door alerted me and I saw Cathy standing there, and her eyes flicked past me towards the safe. “Whoa.”

“Yeah, looks like the owner had some nice stuff tucked away.” I gestured to the gold and money. “I wasn’t expecting to find this much here, but fuck… this is awesome.”

I couldn’t believe our luck, and we haven’t even gotten to the bank yet!

“You’re telling me, holy...” She walked into the room and took a look at the gold, the coins. “Is this really happening?”

“You bet your sweet ass it is.” I chuckled and opened up the duffel bag I had before filling it full of the stacks of cash, and placed the bars on top. The box I kept closed and shoved it into a special pocket before setting the bag down on the floor. “If that’s everything, I think we ca-”

Something had hit the back of my head and draped over my face, something soft like cloth. I sputtered for a moment, startled from the sudden intrusion of the cloth until I took off the offending article.

It was a top…  _ specifically _ it was Cathy’s cheerleader shirt, unbuttoned and… off.

I blinked before turning around and coming face to face with Cathy.

The fifteen year old cheerleader had taken off her top and thrown it at my head. I wasn’t given much time before she had practically torn off her skirt and tossed it aside, and she made a bee-line towards me. She pushed me into the swivel chair and climbed into my lap before she locked lips with me, and I was too stunned to react like any adult should.

Instead I found myself reciprocating it after a second. The adrenaline that coursed through me was a mixture from the excitement of what was happening right now, and fueled by some carnal desire that bubbled to the surface. It surged forth from the depths of my body until I lost all inhibition. Even more so when she separated from our kiss.

My hands sat on either of her hips and I watched as she moved her hands behind her back and up she went with her hands, before she unclasped the hook on her bra and off to the side it went, allowing her DD bust to bounce free.

I had never been more ready for anything in my  _ life. _

My chest felt like it was on fire as she wiggled on my lap, inadvertently giving me a show of her breasts bouncing back and forth.

“Damn, for being as young as you are, you have some big tits.” I swallowed past my short and shaky breathing before my eyes drifted down to those big beautiful and bountiful mountains of  _ tit _ she had. I found myself unable to keep myself from immediately sliding a hand up her side and to one and sinking my fingers into her soft flesh, and getting a greedy handful.

She bit her bottom lip and squeezed her legs around my hips as I shamelessly groped her, my hands kneaded and squeezed both of her sensitive mounds, which in turn started drawing out little coos. “I t-think they’re my greatest asset for cheerleading, certainly gets the crowd’s attention when I start jumping~”

“I bet~” I smirked as I pinched her nipples between my index and thumb, and gently tugged and massaged them. It drew forth a stifled gasp that morphed into a small moan, and she trembled on my lap.

“Mmm, t-that feels good.” Cathy moaned as her back arched, pushing her tits further towards me.

I gave no opposition whatsoever to this action, not that I would even if I wanted to.

As much fun as I was having with her breasts, my hands swiftly fell to her hips and I tugged at her panties, and she was quick to get the idea. Some quick shimmying and movement later, and she had tossed the troublesome article of clothing aside.

We had moved and she was in front of me now, her body facing the desk as she bent over it. Cathy spread her legs to either side and lifted up her ass, and with me sitting in the chair I had the best possible view of her tight teenage snatch, eager to be stuffed. She slid her hand along her smooth stomach to her shaved cunny, three fingers moved up and glided across her puffy lips; two on either swollen mound while the third was between, gently pushing in and spreading them just enough for me to get a good long look at her virgin pink.

She threw a cocky look back at me before pushing her middle finger against her tight hole, and I got to watch the flesh part, before swallowing up her finger and firmly squeezing it.

My heart was pounding in my ribcage as blood surged through my body, heading  _ straight _ down to my pelvis and fueling the tent that had been pitched by my dick. I found it difficult to really swallow and breath, but damn it all if I died here, I’d gladly accept it.

“Looks like you like me too~” She teased as her finger sank all the way to the knuckle. Cathy had a blush on her cheeks, and she was sucking in her bottom lip, biting it as she slowly fingered her cunt for my viewing pleasure. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever done this for, ya know~”

My heart skipped a whole beat as what she said registered in my mind. I leaned back in the chair, relaxing and getting my oxygen back to normal levels before asking, “I am?”

She nodded and wiggled a bit, shuddering and making her ass shake a bit. “Not even the jocks at school have ever seen me like this-” she smiled and slid in another of her fingers. I could just barely make out the noise, the soft sounds of her dripping tunnel flexing around her digits. “All of the boys at school pined for me but I never gave them anything, you’re the first guy to see  _ any of this~ _ ” She accentuated that with a slap of her ass, producing a loud clap throughout the room.

I felt a bit of my ego swell from that knowledge, and my dick seemed to suffer from some swelling as well as I eyed up this girl from head to toe. Such smooth skin, a plump ass and fat pussy, and a huge DD rack prime for playing with, and I am the only guy to ever lay his eyes on this.

Cathy pulled her fingers from her snatch, slowly trailing them down past her soaking wet clit and up her pubis, before she brought her hand up to her mouth. She opened her mouth and pushed in one finger after another, suckling them clean of her juicy girlcum in front of me.

I don’t think my jeans could take much more of the strain my dick was putting on them.

“You should take your pants off,” She told me and gave her ass a wiggle, presenting herself to me once again. “I know you want to fuck me, you’ve been giving me looks since we started robbing places~”

A slight chuckle escaped me as I took off my gear, and then took off my hat before I undid my jacket. “That obvious?”

“Your dick is looking like it’s about to tear through your pants, so… yeah.” She teased again and while I was standing still, she had backed up and bumped her ass against my pelvis and my cock through my pants. She smiled and cooed, “you’re bigger than I thought~”

Once I took off my shirt, I undid the belt I wore and pulled down my pants and boxers, before releasing my dick.

It popped free with eagerness, and was starting to throb excitedly for what was about to happen. I let my pants fall to the floor and eyed up the girl from behind, eyes drifting across her well rounded rear as she gave it a shake.

She looked back at my crotch and her eyes went wide, but she shot me a smirk. “I love you staring at me like that, but I  _ know _ you want to shove that big dick of yours  _ inside me. _ ” She wiggled again as emphasis. “Eager to fuck tight cheer captain pussy~”

“More eager than you might realize, Cathy.” I admitted.

But right now? No more talking, no more teasing and wasting time, time to take  _ full advantage _ of this situation.

I grabbed onto her hip with one hand and used my other to guide my cock to her lips dripping with arousal. She was unbelievably wet, her breathing eager and her lower body  _ shaking _ in anticipation of what was to come.

I could feel my chest tightening, heating up, and my heart rate sped up too. The tip pressed against her tight and plump lips, and a little bit of force caused them to part and slowly wrap around my dick. I pushed further and watched it get swallowed up by her pink, flexing and suckling to pull in inch after solid inch.

“W-whoa,” Cathy breathed out as I had buried my cock halfway inside her. She was already super tight, and I wasn’t even all the way yet. There was still a ways to go before I bottomed out entirely. “You’re thick...”

“N-nng, if I’m your first, I’m wondering what you had for reference.” I commented as I shivered. Her cunt was so warm and tight, but flexible enough to suck up everything I had to give her. She was  _ damn tighter _ than anything I’ve had before, and I loved it.

As I continued burying my cock inside her, she arched her back and ended up pushing back against me with a moan. A squeak escaped her when she ended up taking every inch of my cock, which was already a good nine inches long and who knows how  _ thick _ .

“N-nng, I u-used… uh...” She trembled as our bodies connected. I was buried to the base and relaxed as she massaged every part of my dick, her soft velvety tunnel trembling and tightening around it, drawing out a relieved sigh from myself. “My f-friend’s dildo.”

I started to pull from her, slowly fighting the resistance her cunny gave me. She was so wet and it showed, my dick was absolutely drenched in her girlcum. “I’m bigger than a dildo?”

“V-very~” She moaned softly as she started to squeeze tighter now, trying to keep me inside. But I just kept pulling until I was halfway, and still covered in her slick juices, I grabbed onto both of her hips before thrusting back into her. “Hah!” She cried, throwing her head back.

I grunted once I bottomed out in her again, a bit rougher this time before repeating the action. I pulled out only to force my cock back inside of her, spreading her hole wide and stretching her as much as I could. I shivered and found myself drifting towards cloud nine as she started grinding her hips into mine. A slow circular motion that caused little pleasurable nubs to spike across our whole bodies.

Just from how she was acting told me all I needed to know about how well I was doing. The way she moaned and moved her hips against mine, how eager she was to push back into me when I thrusted forward, burying my cock deeper each time. She’d grunt and moan with each impact and lean forward, head hanging as she moaned.

“Nng, g-god yes!” She growled out and threw her head back again, and I felt her hand touch my cock before it found purchase on her clit, and she started fingering herself, every motion she made touching my cock in one form or another. “Hah, hah,  _ hah. _ ” She was breathing hard and trembling once I picked up a steady motion.

I would wait until I was halfway out, maybe up to where my glans met her lips before thrusting back inside, balls deep. A loud slap would sound with each impact, followed by the very vocal grunting and groaning from Cathy. She was trembling, shaking, her legs buckling as I began to slide in and out of her with ease.

“Hnnng, g-god,  _ f-fuck. _ ” She whimpered, squeezing even tighter as she started moving her hips in time with mine.

“N-never thought you’d be g-getting railed after robbing a jewelry store?” I posed to her as I grabbed a handful of her ass, sinking my fingers into the soft yet toned rear she had no doubt spent a couple of years building.

“N-no,” She sputtered out. “N-not in a million y-years  _ but I love it~ _ ” Cathy began to pant now, moaning louder as she continued to finger her little love button. “A-ahh, h-harder!”

_ She’s certainly vocal, but just means more fun for me~ _ I took her up on that challenge before pulling back, and aiming just right I started to  _ slam _ into her.

My hips connected with hers hard, the slap of flesh against flesh was louder than before. I had bent over her and got into a better position to start fucking her a little more properly, no more kid stuff.

I bent over her, pinning her to the desk as my arm reached around her sides to grab both of her fat tits in my hand. I pressed one firmly to her chest with my arm and used my hand to squeeze the other, fondling and tugging at her nipple as I fucked her.

“Hah! Hah! Hah! Holy  _ c-crap, _ y-yes! J-just like that, Dutch.” Cathy breathed. “Nnng,  _ yes~ _ ”

I started to get into it, and for a brief while there I had lost myself to the throes of passion. The desk rocked back and forth from our fucking, the smell and sounds clouding both of our minds from how long we had been at it.

“D-Daddy~” She had suddenly moaned, her groans getting lighter and higher pitched. “Nnng daddy~”

I just about lost it when she started with that.

Before much longer she trembled against the desk, pressing back into me before crying out, “Oh god, o-oh god I’m cu-cu-” She started writhing against me mid-sentence, and I felt her cunt wrap around me like a vice. She was stock still, barely able to draw in air as a juicy squirt of girlcum gushed from her. “H-haaaaah~!”

In the midst of her orgasm I ran my hand down her stomach and to her pussy, where I moved her hand and started finger-blasting her clitoris, robbing it in a tight circle while groping her cunny’s swollen and sopping wet lips.

I felt my stomach tense up and my cock start to grow more sensitive. I felt my own orgasm approaching and found it difficult to pull out, my moments got jerky and I was covered in sweat,

“Nnng, d-daddy~”

That did it. I pulled out and slammed right back into her, balls slapping against her pubis before a single pulsation alerted what was to come, only a few moments later as I buried my dick balls deep, I came.

A long prolonged feeling of elation escaped me as I gripped onto Cathy’s body, and flooded her cunt with my cum. But I didn’t stop after the first, another thick rope joined it, absolutely painting her insides  _ white _ .

_ ‘Yes, lay claim to her~’ _ A more primal part of my mind cried, as the sound of Cathy’s moans filled my ears.

“Nnng, s-so much!” She panted and squeezed around me as her hand found mine, her fingers interlocking with mine, she held my hand. “Mmm~”

I lost myself to the pleasure, unable to really comprehend much as I all but emptied what I had inside of her tight snatch. I had never pumped out this much in a long time, and knowing it was filling this girl…

It just excited me to no end.

After some time we relaxed as we rode out our high, and ended up moving to the floor for some delicious post-sex cuddling.

I was on my back, taking in deep breaths as Cathy was cuddled up next to me. I was smiling like an idiot and she was firmly hugging me, despite the sweat covering me. I had an arm around her as my thoughts drifted, mostly towards the fact that on top of having successfully robbed two places and having a fuckton of money, I also fucked an absolute  _ banger _ of a cheerleader.

“That was  _ awesome. _ ” Cathy chuckled as she reached up and kissed my cheek, smiling.

I felt her run circles around my chest with her hands, drifting ever lower. I just kept grinning like a damned fool. “Yeah, whew… damn girl, you know how to get a guy going.” I told her as my hand went to her shoulder, and squeezed it.

I felt her hand move further down before she grabbed onto my cock again. I gave a slight grunt as her smooth fingers delicately grabbed my shaft and she started to slowly pump it slowly. “I’ve never had this much fun in a long time, figured why not?” She cooed.

Her efforts with my dick didn’t exactly go without a reaction from me. I was already starting to get hard again, and that caused her eyes to light up.

“Ready to go again?” She pursed her lips as she looked down, her eyes almost gleaming.

“Heh, maybe a little.” I admitted before she then ducked down to my legs, all the while maintaining eye contact with me.

I watched as she moved down between my legs, that smile still on her face before she leaned down, and licked the tip of my cock. I shivered from the sensation of her tongue lapping up the cum still covering my flesh, before she took in the head and started to swirl her tongue around it.

“Mmm~” She moaned and started to lick and suckle on it, like she was sucking a drink through a straw. I had to do my best not to grab her face and start jackhammering right then and there, and she  _ knew _ it, if that little chuckle told me anything.

She started to suck a bit harder and took in more, going so far down she managed to hit the base of my pelvis. I felt the back of her fucking throat, and that sensation vanished as she started to bob her head. Cathy slid up and down, slowly at first and using her tongue to lick clean the cum and stimulate me.

I felt my toes curl and muscles stiffen. “S-shit, Cath.”

She hummed around my dick and started bobbing faster. The sloppy sound of her moving up and down was loud, suckling and gasping for air. I felt like I was being brought back to cloud nine. I was already sensitive down there and she was taking full advantage of the fact despite having been a virgin, which made me wonder how she  _ practiced. _

After a bit of time, I felt that familiar pressure well up inside. “Nnn, C-Cathy-”

She took a brief second to acknowledge me with her eyes before she sped up her movements. I just laid there while she went to town, bringing me ever closer to the edge until I couldn’t take anymore.

My hand found its way to her head and I couldn’t help but shove her down, forcing my cock into the back of her throat and taking her by surprise. I emptied the last of my load in her mouth, coating the back of her throat and filling her stomach.

She held onto me and swallowed hard, gulping down the copious amounts of cum I had to give her before I finally let go and she popped free. A gasp of air, and she was just in time to catch some ropes of jizz on her face.

Cathy closed her eyes so she wouldn’t catch it there, but otherwise, she let me cover her nose, cheeks and lips with it. Her mouth was wide open, hands still furiously jerking me off and her tongue lolling out as she happily caught the remainder before I finally went soft.

My head hit the floor and I struggled to keep my senses intact.

_ Holy fuck, what a girl, Jesus. _

I felt Cathy drag her tongue across my dick again, but she just licked it clean before grabbing some nearby cloth and wiping her face. She shot me a smile before hand though, “you’re an awesome guy, Dutch~”

I managed to lift my hand enough to shoot her a thumbs up. “You’re a h-hell of a girl, Cath…  _ goddamn. _ ”

She giggled. “We’ll have to do that again sometime~”

The prospect of there being a next time just excited me, but for now?

I needed some water, holy shit.

* * *

After we had gotten cleaned up and fueled up with some food and water, the two of us gathered up our loot and got out of the jewelry store in one piece. We took everything that wasn’t bolted down or locked away, which isn't really anything in all honesty. We made out with bags filled to the brim with precious gemstones and jewels.

We made our way to the truck and loaded it up with the other bags before eyeballing the bank across the street from us. It was a little bigger, and had  **_Bank of Raccoon City_ ** emblazoned at the top, with several large doors.

“Think it’s bigger than Johnson?” Cathy asked me as we climbed the stairs to the doors.

“Probably, it’s a big bank. It probably has a bigger vault, which means more time spent prying open the inside and getting everything.” I hummed as I made sure I was armed for the occasion. A mixture of handguns and my revolvers, a shotgun and an MP5 I picked up, I was pretty ready. “I don’t think we’ll get as lucky finding a keycard and code for the vault like we did at Johnson.”

“You never know~” The teenager cooed and slapped me on the back. “Now let’s get in there and see what we can grab! I’m excited!”

I chuckled and after a second, I gave her a resounding slap on the ass. My hand lingered as it ventured under her skirt, and I fondled the soft flesh of her toned ass. She squeaked and giggled though in return to it.

“Keep that up we might end up having more fun in the vault than just stealing money~” She told me as she gripped onto the handle.

“I wouldn’t really fight you on it either.” I winked and held up my MP5 before turning the knob and opening the door.

In that moment I opted for a more tacticool approach, and kicked the doors open before heading inside, flashlight on despite it being morning.

I expected a lot of things inside.

What I  _ wasn’t _ expecting was a group of people to be inside, armed to the teeth, and trying to open the vault with a bunch of power tools that looked like the ones from the jewelry store rooftop.

Cathy and I stared at the other group, and they stared at us. We were all silent as the realization of what was going on hit the lot of us.

The tallest of the lot glared. “Who the fuck are you?!”

“Hey, wasn’t Lenny supposed to keep an eye out once he was done with the jewelry store?!“ Someone in the back mentioned.

… that blood, and those tools.

“Shit, they must have killed him!” Another cried and we found a gun aimed right at us.

“Fuck! Kill them!”

_ Son of a bitch! _


	6. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After running into some goons at the next bank, Cathy and Dutch make an attempt to escape, but things go awry when Dutch finds himself on his own... things only continue to get weirder from there once he makes his descent into the NEST.

Catching a bullet wasn’t a good feeling, especially when it was in the dominant arm. Thankfully Cathy was there to help guide me out of there, but she was still a kid and wasn’t able to really do much aside from blindly fire behind us.

We had run outside away from the bank amidst a hail of gunfire and took cover behind one of the cars as we were being peppered by shells from the bank. I had taken off my bandanna and used it to makeshift a tourniquet to stop the bleeding as I made sure my MP5 was ready to go.

“Son of a  _ bitch. _ ” I cursed as gunfire sprayed the side of the car I was hiding behind. I was trying to catch my breath as they kept firing on us with handguns, shotguns, even some automatic guns. “Should have figured those tools weren’t on the roof for shits and giggles.”

“Who the hell are these assholes?!” Cathy questioned as she kept herself ducked behind cover.

“We weren’t the only ones who thought about robbing the damn banks around here!” I yelled and turned the safety off of my MP5 before angling it up and over the hood. I pulled the trigger, sending a spray of 9mm rounds their general direction.

I heard one of them yell, and some of the gunfire stopped, but the ones who weren’t hit kept shooting.

“Should have known, damn it.” After emptying the magazine, I grumbled and pulled the gun towards me before ejecting it and replacing it with a fully loaded one. “We’re not getting out of this easy!”

Cathy’s eyes widened as she held her SMG tight. “What about the truck?! W-we can use it to escape with!”

I looked off to where the truck was and saw it was still parked where we had left it, across the street and open ground towards the jewelry store. There was little to no cover in sight save for one or two cars.

“It’s too far!” I fired back, jumping up for a brief moment halfway to aim and fire.

I sprayed what I spotted, mentally marking their locations and swiftly ducked back down behind cover.

“We can make it!” She argued.

I shook my head and ducked as a bullet ricocheted off of something. “Too much gunfire between here and there to get across safely!”

We needed a way out, and fast! I should have planned for this, but I didn’t!

_ Fuck! _

“I’m a cheerleading captain!” She told me, glaring right into my eyes. “I can move quick enough to get there!”

“Quick enough to dodge a hellstorm of gunfire?” I asked in return before popping back up and firing again, this time in a less organized fashion.

I swear I nailed one of them in the chest, knocking him back, but that left at least half a dozen more!

  
“J-just… just cover me!” She told me, gripping my arm. “Shoot at them and I’ll get the truck and drive it over, and we can both get out with all of the money we have now!”

We did have a lot of money in there, and if she  _ was _ quick enough…

Fuck it. I fished the keys from my pocket and handed them to her. After pausing to reload, I looked her in the eyes. “Don’t get shot, and we get out of this with  _ millions _ between us.”

“Y-yeah… between us.” Her tone shifted for a moment and she nodded.

I barely took notice of it before counting down.

Three.

Gun primed.

Two.

Ready to sprint.

One.

I popped up and open fired on the group, marking my targets with quick bursts of gunfire as I heard Cathy sprint for the truck.

_ ‘No!’ _ A voice in my head screamed at me as I kept the trigger pulled down hard, sending three round bursts flying every few seconds.

_ Why no? I just had to wait! _ I didn’t understand, what was this feeling in my stomach.

Unease, anxiety…

I heard the truck roar to life before I ducked down again, and the realization suddenly hit me..

My eyes flicked up to catch sight of Cathy buckling in her seatbelt, and she stared at me through the driver’s side window. I watched her as the squad car behind me was being destroyed by the gunfire, glass shattering, tires hissing from air escaping.

Cathy turned to look ahead before she slammed on the accelerator and peeled out, blasting through a small barricade and down the street towards the Stone-Ville Road leading northeast, out of town and away from me.

_ ‘Y-yeah… between us.’ _ I heard in my head, Cathy’s voice cut through the gunfire.

I just got fucking  _ played! _

“You bitch!” I all but shrieked as my eyes widened. I was fucking played by that damn girl, left for dead as she ran off with all of the fucking loot and guns!

“He’s alone! Fucking get him!”

_ Shit, I got too goddamn greedy and let my dick decide on what to do, fuck me running! _

I was fucking fooled.

A loud honking had barely drawn my attention, and I had pondered just giving up then and there, but my curiosity had caused me to glare at whatever was coming.

A large school bus blasted into view, smashing through a few cars and sending them flying until it hit one of the police vans nearby. It crushed the front end and a body went flying out of the front window and crashing onto the pavement with a splatter.

The bus itself fish tailed and flew up and over onto its side, smashing into the ground and skidding for a spell. It came to a stop eventually, right in front of the fire fight taking place, and causing the group to stop firing.

The air was silent, the city truly dead as we watched the school bus.

I don’t know why I didn’t run, or why I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

It wasn’t until I heard banging from the bus that I began to worry. Flames erupted from the engine compartment as the windows on the bus shattered before a hand stuck out, followed by another, and another, and another…

Ten, twenty, thirty more climbing out…

Oh my god.

The bus was crammed full of bodies! They were struggling to crawl out, scramble out of the flames, and everyone of them was  _ pissed off and hungry _ . But they weren’t regular adult zombies, no… these were  _ children _ shoved into a school bus!

It was like a fucking spider egg violently hatching, with dozens of the little fuckers scrambling out with snarls and growls, eager to eat us all

“Holy fuck!”

I shot up and ran for it, headed north down the road leading out of town. “I don’t know who the fuck ordered Satan’s Clown Car, but I am not okay with this!”

The undead children spilled out and ran in just about every direction; spewing from the windows, the emergency hatch, the doors, they found a way out and after having caught fire, ran after anyone still breathing!

The group that had originally tried killing me focused their efforts on them instead of me, and I took the opportunity to fucking run for my life. The undead decided they were going to spread out and chase me and the other survivors down, being much faster than regular ones, but I could still outpace them by a  _ hot minute. _

I found myself being chased down an alleyway, across some train tracks leading somewhere. Probably to the tram and train stations nearby, I had no idea but I kept moving, if only to lose my tails.

Across some garbage and past a bunch of abandoned vehicles, I kept my guns held tight and made a bee-line through the maze of construction equipment and cargo left to rot. I passed by a few bodies here and there, but I kept moving.

I didn’t stop even as betrayal and hurt burned through me like a raging inferno.

_ Nnnng! God fucking damn her! _ Was it fear? Or did she plan this when I told her my plan? “Stupid fucking...”

I finally rounded a corner nearby, sliding onto some pavement and continuing to run away from the scene of absolute carnage, but it had grown quiet now…

Save for the solitary undead in front of me.

I should have been tactful about this, but I was so goddamn angry.

So fucking  _ pissed _ that I ran full sprint at him.

“Aaaaaaaaah!” I jumped as I neared the slowly approaching undead, and barely thinking about it I slammed the butt of my MP5 right into his face.

I slammed into it hard enough to knock it onto the ground flat. I dropped my SMG and landed on the ground, before straddling the downed zombie.

“Fuck  _ you! _ ” I pulled back my fist and threw it, hard.

It connected with the hard skull of the undead, knocking him to the side as he tried to fight back. Mostly by grabbing me and trying to bite into me, but I didn’t let him.

My fury knew no limit.

I pulled back and threw another punch, forcing his arms from me as I started punching him. Haymakers and straight jabs, right into his nose, mouth, eyes, I didn’t stop.

I didn’t  _ stop. _

The face of the undead started to become distorted, warped by my anger as it took on Cathy’s face. “Dumb bitch!” I scowled and threw another punch, a wet crunch and plap noise, but I kept going. “Stupid fucking idiot!”

I fell for a nice pair of tits and a great ass!

I let my  _ dick _ take control and now look at where it got me!

“Damn it!”

The undead had stopped moving, but I didn’t stop.

I didn’t stop.

_ Fuck... _

* * *

Somehow I managed to calm myself down long enough to realize I was punching little more than shattered skull, brain, and gravel. My hand was aching, bloodied, but thankfully not to the point it got into my body to infect me.

That would be my luck; punch a zombie and get its blood in a cut on my fist from punching so hard.

I wandered the tracks for a spell, passing by giant chemical structures and warehouses. The fog rolling in didn’t help my poor vision any, nor did the distant sounds that traveled through the morning air. The skies were overcast, the area abandoned, and I was  _ alone _ with little ammunition and no loot to speak of to help my journey.

I had done so much to try and help myself, and ended up with no payout because I was stupid.

I was  _ fucked _ over by a fucking teenage girl who won me over with her big tits and a fat ass.

_ I deserve it. I shouldn’t have told her shit, nor should I have stopped at the fucking school. I just had to play the hero to the damsel in distress, rescue her and have a happy outlaw ending or some bullshit. _

I had to be  _ that guy. _ I’ve never been so pissed in my life until now, I feel disgusted with myself, angry even at the simple fact I let myself get played by someone.

_ She didn’t like me to begin with, she just didn’t want to split any of the money… _

I had no idea what to do now escape  _ just escape _ the damn city. I honestly felt fucking defeated, my plans were ruined cause I was too stupid and didn’t think properly.

_ All of that money and she’s run off with it… the cunt. That was going to be our ticket to a good life, and she got greedy. _

I think I actually liked her, it just stung even worse as I wandered through the train yard.

I let my heart and dick decide my actions instead of my brain.

I arrived at a large building that those tracks led towards. The building was fenced in at one point but rotted away due to years of industrial decline, allowing me entry. The inside wasn’t too suspicious, but I began to figure out what this is.

It wasn’t until I reached a section of the building proper that I found a large marshalling yard for trains. There was no one around, and the cameras I found continued to whir and buzz unphased by the war going on in the city nearby.

I had actually made it pretty far enough that I was outside of the city, but I was still close enough that it made me uncomfortable.

I didn’t see anyone and didn’t find anything worth much. The place was seemingly abandoned by the people who worked here, long abandoned too.

_ This is the Chemical Plant, if I’m not mistaken… one of the entry points into the NEST below the city. _

I realized when I saw the train sitting there, untouched. It was a large and clunky piece of machinery and I had no earthly idea how to even begin trying to operate the damn thing. Maybe it was a key and switch, or a puzzle, I had no fucking idea. The RE universe was the kind that was buried in puzzles and shenanigans to lock shit away, who knows what Umbrella used to keep their shit under lock and key.

Least in this universe.

I was reminded of Cindy and her group, and the fact they had gone down there last night, if not yesterday. Fuck, I was coming ot the realization I hadn’t slept in so long, the tiredness was creeping into my body, and I found it difficult to focus on the job at hand.

Which was still unknown to me.

What was I even still doing in this city? I had nothing left to grab and the longer I stayed here, the more I was going to be in dange-

I heard a thump behind me, a rather  _ hefty _ one at that.

I whipped around and pulled out my MP5, aiming it.

I felt my blood run cold as the sight of a massive creature in a dark coat, a sculpted figure of pure muscle, and greyed flesh from bald head to boot clad toe. Lifeless eyes stared at me and I stared right back at it, as terror slowly filled my body.

It was a goddamn  _ Tyrant. _

It made no noise except for the taut sound of its leather gloves as it clenched its fists tightening further, and its face slowly contorting into an angry scowl.

“Fuck.”

It pulled back its fist in preparation for a punch, prompting me to jump off to the side to avoid its strong right uppercut.

I landed in a roll away from it before recovering, and I aimed my gun before pulling the trigger. I peppered him with a tight spray of 9mm rounds, but they bounced off of the thick protective coat he wore. It was like shooting at a bulletproof brick shithouse.

A deep rumble and he turned towards me, and started moving faster.

I had no choice but to run into the chemical plant.

I fired my MP5 one handed behind me as I started a mad dash for the inside of the building, peppering the Tyrant with rapid gunfire.

I slammed through one of the doors and down a narrow and tight hallway. Flickering lights and locked doors lined the halls as I was chased by the monster, loud footfalls that began gaining speed.

He was fast due to his sheer size and longer strides, but I was  _ faster _ and I knew it!

I just had to get away, stay out of his reach, not look back and sprint like hell!

_ I can’t die here. _

I turned down another hall and found a stairwell, where I burst through a metal door and propelled myself down the metal stairs.

Into the depths I had gone, chased by an eight foot tall monstrosity that only craved my destruction.

Into the depths of the birthplace of madness I ventured.

Perhaps my final resting place if I was unlucky enough.

* * *

My heart was beating rapidly, and I found it difficult to breathe in the tight confines of the underground tunnels I had found myself in.

My MP5 had run dry, lost in the darkness, and I knew I was being  _ hunted _ like some kind of animal.

_ Stay quiet. _

Only my shotgun and my side arms remained on my person. I held the shotgun close, stalking through dimly lit tunnels in search of some kind of respite, an escape from certain death.

_ No sound. _

In the distance I could hear the heavy thumps of his boots, stomping around in search of me. I would hear them speed up before the crash of metal and concrete was heard, only for him to go elsewhere.

He couldn’t find me, I was safe for the time being, but for how long being so close to the birthplace of Birkin’s nightmarish creation? The G-Virus was in this laboratory, and if I was right… which I knew I was…

So was  _ he. _

Birkin was a massive monster, only mutating further the longer time went on. I was trapped down here with no way out. I didn’t have the map layout exactly memorized, or any of the maps save for a scant few.

The NEST was not one of them.

I just knew it was a massive underground hive of viral activity and creation, where bioorganic weaponry was created for selling on the black market to the highest bidders. What a horrible place this world had become, home to bioweapons the likes of which mine would gladly never know.

But with how things were going, most likely this world would become my home.

If I wasn’t careful, then this lab would become my grave, and the city with it.

_ I have to find another way out of this damn place. _

I continued down these stupid tunnels before I emerged out into a large subway system of sorts. The underground train system for Umbrella no doubt, used for transporting their executives and resources from one place to the other around the area; obviously some areas were completely destroyed now, but I found myself curious.

Where else did these tracks lead?

Obviously other facilities spread throughout the city and the Arklay Mountains, but…

I shook my head, it didn’t matter much I don’t think.

The only thing that mattered was that  _ one _ of them had to lead  _ outside _ , specifically, outside of the city’s blast zone so I could get to safety.

At this point, I just wanted out of the damn city. I’ll live homeless if it means being safe from this  _ bullshit _ .

“Stupid fucking city… Christ.” I grumbled and moved down the tunnel at a brisk pace. I didn’t want to risk moving slowly in case something was following or stalking me.

I mean I knew there was, but the faster I was going the better.

I couldn’t hear much of anything the deeper I went inside the building, save for the dull sounds of machinery cranking away through the walls, and the hissing of steam through pipes. Wind rushed through from an unknown source, but I pressed ever onwards.

A train greeted me after some time. It was lodged through a half closed blast door, smashing the front end of it and keeping it open just enough to get through. I shone my flashlight towards the area and found some bodies, specifically those of Umbrella Scientists and workers.

They were long dead.

The train itself was completely totaled, no way in hell was I going to use it anytime soon, not unless I shat out an engineering repair guide to use on the damned thing.

I cautiously weighed my options, and quickly came to the realization that going back would be a trek not worth my time. Going forward meant a lot of things, but I was already here… on top of that, laziness won out over my survival instincts.

It was a  _ wonder _ I was still alive.

I crawled under the gate and to the otherside, where blood splatters and corpses awaited me. The walls were decorated in the remains of a failed last stand, between the bullet holes and the dead bodies, it was clear they knew there was no way out of this once they got stuck.

The train itself was only a few cars long, but every one had its window smashed out, but the ones who did it were long gone. It was a massacre down here, a fucking  _ tomb _ and I was heading right into it like an idiot.

I made sure I was loaded up on ammo before heading further in.

The emergency lights bathed the smooth concrete walls of the train tunnel in a dull red/yellow glow. My eyes began to strain against it, but I kept moving. I passed by a lot of openings in the walls where small doors lead to some electrical panels that I didn’t know a thing about.

After a while I arrived at a station where the train must have come from. More scenes of carnage awaited me, bodies of UBCS and even a couple of USS were laying around, alongside completely torn apart scientists and employees of the company.

I climbed up the steps off to the side and trekked carefully through the orgy of death and destruction. I didn’t hear anything, but any of the bodies could be a zombie lying in wait, ready to take a massive chunk out of me.

_ Jeez. They must have tried evacuating but it went wrong, but goddamn I didn’t know it was  _ **_this_ ** _ bad. _ Umbrella tried to evacuate all of the people they could from their facilities, but this was horrible.

How many people worked down here? How many managed to escape in one piece while their twisted creations were set loose by Birkin?

A hall nearby led to an elevator, which I went down. The lighting was a little better, but still too dark for my liking. I could feel eyes watching me, and when I looked I only saw cameras buzzing in the corners.

Was someone still alive and watching me down here?

If so… then this may go badly for me.

I shook my body a bit to loosen myself up. I couldn’t let myself get down, I had to stay positive, I had to stay focused on surviving this bullshit. I was in too deep now, and I only had forward to go.

Sad it meant going through the Nest.

I could continue down the tunnel, but the lack of lighting and the sounds alone were enough to ward me off and instead head inside of the underground structure known as the NEST.

My mind was racing with all of the monsters that were dwelling in the darkness, forever lost until they found something  _ alive _ down here. I kept my shotgun up and wiped the sweat from my brow, determined to-

**_SQUAWK_ **

I nearly shat myself when my radio went off.

Slamming into the wall, I gripped my chest as static came through, a signal down here?

_ “Hunk, Alpha to command, we’ve secured the sample.” _ I heard over the radio, and I immediately grabbed onto the radio to turn it down.

_ Sample? _ I thought. There were still people down here? Wait… Hunk?

_ “Command to Alpha, good work. Return to the surface for extraction.” _ Came a distinctly familiar voice.

What the fuck was I listening in on?

I kept moving through the hall, radio to my ear as I closed in on an open area. I found tons of crates and containers sitting around, forklifts ready to be used and cranes nearby. It was a large loading facility for a massive elevator nearby.

Wait… I hadn’t gone that far down, had I?

Unless that tunnel played some mind tricks on me or something, I should still be well on the surface, not underground where the lab is.

Once I emerged into the area proper, I ducked down and took cover by one of the containers. I could hear boots running, followed by rapid gunfire and an explosion. The room almost shook as stomping came next, and the room shook even more.

I peeked out from behind cover and I saw a group of black uniform clad individuals sprinting from a hallway, but one of theirs had fallen behind and was flung overhead by something, sending him flying away.

He flew like a ragdoll before hitting a wall. A sickening crunch and he fell to the floor, lifeless.

Storming out of the hall, wielding a massive pipe was what I was scared of seeing the most. My body tensed up and I felt his presence like a cornered rat coming face to face with a feline.

William Birkin, the creator of the G-Virus, in his mutated form.

The whole team was assaulted by Birkin and they fired on him full blast, shotguns and SMGs opening fire. But their guns did little but piss him right off and cause him to hulk out. Birkin sprinted over to one of the soldiers and slammed his pipe into him and sent the rest flying, killing the majority of the team.

A loud roar and he stalked over the bodies, his eyes twitching and examining them before he lumbered off with a deep growl.

Somehow he didn’t see me as he stomped off into the unknown.

I was so frozen I may have blended into the background too much for him to notice with his mutant eyes.

Thank  _ god _ .

I was shaking. I was sweating.

_ Shit, calm down. _

I couldn’t, that was a real fucking monster. I’ve fought monsters, but these were  _ proper fucking  _ **_monsters_ ** I was fighting against, and it was beginning to shake me to the core.

I had only fought zombies, walking corpses! Not these purposefully mutated  _ fucks _ that qualified as proper biological weapons of war. _. _

_ Jesus, how do any of them do it… courage? Willpower? They were scared too, but… fuck. _

I was scared out of my mind.

I peered out again and I saw one of the bodies move, one with red lenses on his mask. That had to have been Hunk I heard, but that didn’t make sense. He had already done this and left the city, this wouldn’t be happening right now, this would have been a day or so ago! If not near the beginning of the outbreak, so why...

Why was this happening  _ now _ all of a sudden? Nothing was lining up.

Hunk grabbed a metal case on the floor and didn’t even bother checking his comrades, He took the case and ran for it, taking the opportunity to leave the area and evacuate with whatever it was he had in that case.

Probably the G and T viruses, umbrella’s most valuable product.

Once he left, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding until now. I collapsed onto the floor and ran a hand across my sweat covered face. I held my head as a pain ran through it. I couldn’t focus right.

Nothing was right.

Was I seriously trapped in the Nest with Birkin?

Damn it.

Pain in my arm reminded me of the gunshot wound I had received earlier, and had yet to actually clean and patch up properly. I nearly forgot about it in my haste to escape the hoard of mini-zombies…

Filthy little bastards.

I looked at my sleeve and saw how torn up it was. Stained in blood that had begun to dry and flake already. I grumbled.

I needed some medical supplies, but I didn’t know where to find those down here.

I bit the bullet and ripped the sleeve from my arm, and tied it snugly around the wound to cut off the bleeding and use it as a makeshift bandage.

Once that was gone, and the pain subsided, I stood up and made my way over to the bodies. But I was careful, I didn’t know who or what was watching me.

The bodies were completely devastated, their guns smashed to pieces, no way were they coming back anytime soon. I looked to where Hunk had run off too, but I couldn’t follow him, I doubt I’d survive long if I was on his tail.

I took a deep breath and looked around the area, and my heart started to beat faster when I spotted a few undead coming out from behind containers. Just out of nowhere, and now I was being slowly surrounded by them.

_ Gotta stop getting distracted. _

I racked my shotgun again and took aim, before firing on the closest one and blowing its head clean off, and peppering the ones behind him in pellets.

The empty shell flew out as I opted for one of the halls Birkin had not gone down. No signs or anything to tell me where it led to, but I went for it and hoped for the best.

_ Find some medical supplies, find a way out… and figure out how in the fuck I watched Hunk get the G-Virus. _ That was still confusing the fuck out of me.

Hunk should be long gone by now, same with what he managed to salvage, if I wasn’t mistaken. The teams should be long dead, and this facility should be abandoned except for Annette Birkin, her husband, and maybe some of the others who came down here yesterday.

But here I was.

I was losing my ficking mind, that was the only explanation I had for this.

Another undead came at me from out of the darkness, arms outstretched and mouth open.

I ran up and shoved the barrel of my shotgun into it and pulled the trigger, blowing the top half of his skull clean off. Blood went everywhere, but I pressed onwards, heading deeper into the damned Nest in search of whatever the fuck it was I was looking for.

There were so many hallways and passages that led all throughout this damn laboratory, and all I found was death around every corner. Bodies of scientists and guards, torn apart by the monsters or otherwise  _ shot _ by USS in their search for the virus.

Or themselves, suicide was a better option then turning into one of these things.

I found myself heading down even more hallways, where a series of security doors led into various rooms for studying and developing no doubt highly dangerous viral weaponry. I could see tons of scientific equipment that escaped my knowledge, and a lot of goop… lots of bubbling goop and vats full of liquid, even bodies suspended in animation to be studied.

Further in I found a massive door that had been destroyed. A red light was going off nearby, with a panel reading ‘viral outbreak’ on it, apparently a quarantine had been activated in the facility, which isn’t surprising considering what had been released.

I kept my gun level as I started through the door, climbing through the massive hole created from whatever monster destroyed it and looked around.

It was a massive underground storage room, from the looks of the containers everywhere. Massive containers were lined up in dozens upon dozens of rows, but suspended above on conveyor belts that were still active were giant steel pods with narrow glass slits. They didn’t bode well to me, and it worried me as to what was  _ inside _ of them.

Somehow something told me they weren’t carrying valuable supplies.

If anything, probably finished bioweapons, like the Hunters.

I gave a slight whistle and watched them move, swaying to and from from so high above. Down below, I saw a veritable maze of steel that led to the other side of the massive room, where more doors lay.

I didn’t know what was down there though, and  _ that _ worried me. Anything could be hiding down there, skulking in the shadows waiting for someone like me to  _ arrive _ .

I started down the stairs and reloaded my shotgun, and made sure everything on my person was ready to go in the eventuality that I needed it.

A thud filled my ears once my foot hit the floor, and I found I wasn’t alone.

I looked off towards the right and aimed my shotgun, but found an assault rifle aimed right back at me just as quick, if not quicker. Standing across from me was a woman in black tactical armor and gear, wearing a full combat helmet that even covered her face. I couldn’t make out any of her features, only that she was a woman.

She kept her gun aimed at me and uttered, “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

She looked like the USS, dressed head to toe like a USS soldier, which meant I was screwed…

Then she opened fire.


	7. The First Hint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After finding his way down into the NEST, Dutch finds through a series of events there's more to this than meets the eyes.

I barely had time to react, and barely felt the bullet whizz past my ear before the sound of something getting hit sounded behind me.

I whirled around in time to catch an undead fall to the ground, shot right between the eyes.

Looking back towards the USS Soldier, she lowered her rifle. “Can’t be relaxed around here, kid.” She told me, her voice synthesized through her helmet. “Those grunts are everywhere.”

Grunts? Good a term as any, I guess.

“T-thanks?” I said as she walked towards the containers.

“Why’re you down here?” She got to the point quickly, only half glancing back at me. “ _ How _ did you get down here?”

I swallowed a lump in my throat and cleared my throat. “Found the marshalling yard above and got chased inside by some giant fucker… big grey dude, got lost trying to escape and found a path down here.” I explained as she started to move…

I followed her.

She didn’t say anything as she led me through the maze of containers. Her heavy boots stomped across the floor, some of her equipment rattling slightly, but we kept moving through the maze.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked her as we moved past some corpses, those of scientists and other workers. They were torn into by some monster… and I bet it wasn’t too far from us, I could almost smell it lurking around.

Or maybe that was the dead bodies.

“Classified.” The woman uttered as she rounded a corner, and two loud gunshots rang out before something fell to the ground.

When I followed her, I saw two more bodies of the undead laying out on the ground. I looked at her. “No offense lady, but I doubt it matters, considering what’s going on right now.” I kept following this woman, and took note of the backpack she wore on his back. What could a USS need with so much gear?

On top of the M4 she was carrying, she carried a hefty looking handgun and a short shotgun, and a pair of deadly looking blades on her hips.

Better gear then mine, sort of. I carried my Mosin on my back, at least three regular handguns, my shotgun in my hand…

She was outfitted like a proper soldier.

“It does matter, more than you think, kid.” She told me still as we eventually made it through the maze to the other side, where a couple of forklifts had crashed into one another.

“Well here’s another question… Why are you helping me?” It was strange that she would, seeing how she was USS. They weren’t exactly helpful to civilians in the universe, from what I remember.

“I have my reasons.” She told me, and went silent again.

I was pretty fucking suspicious, but what could I do about it? She was a  _ highly trained _ killer who could probably crush my existence with those tacticool-clad  _ thighs _ of hers, and here I was following her as she led me through the facility.

“Not many civilians know how to get down into this facility,” she told me as we rounded a corner and headed for a large door, which she ended up trying to open. The keycard lock was something that gave her some issue, and she pulled out a small device before messing with it.

Was she trying to hack it open?

“I got lucky, I guess.” I shrugged and kept a lookout. We weren’t alone down here, and it made me anxious for something to come out of the darkness, to pierce the silence like a thunderclap and send me into a panic attack. “I seem to be real lucky as of late.”

I could only hear the beeping from her little device, and saw numbers flying across the screen when I looked back at her. I let her do her thing and focused back on the room around me, all of the containers and boxes. I wondered what they were storing down here, what was in all of these things.

Weapons? Equipment?’

I could crack one open, but that wasn’t my priority right now.

It was to get out of the city, which I should have done in the first place.

“Why haven’t you escaped yet?” She asked me, halfway looking back towards me. “Plenty of roads lead out of here, but you came down here.”

“Bad luck on my part, mostly.” I muttered, and thought about Cathy… the bitch. “Decided to take advantage of the chaos and get some money for myself, just cause I’ve been broke this whole time.” Half a lie, half the truth. “Ended up getting some help with it, but she stabbed me in the back and drove off with all of the shit we stole.”

“So you’re a thief then?”

“Not cause I wanted to, cause I needed to. If I escaped this city, what would I have left?” I glared at her. “I just moved here, sunk my life savings into this… and now I’ve lost everything, you think I’m gonna take a chance on the government helping me out? Fat chance… besides, I knew once I had gotten out with all that money, no one would have caught me… no evidence.”

She looked at me for a bit longer before turning back to her device, and I went back to the area around me.

A beeping sound behind me and the door’s locks thunked open, followed by a light going off and the door itself sliding open. We both armed ourselves and made our way under the door as it was halfway up, and to the other side.

The hall we were in now had been the scene of a gunfight, full of bodies of both security and undead. We ventured through the carnage and deeper into the building, though in the distance I had a feeling from the noise, we wouldn’t be getting much further before something happened.

I couldn’t help but ask, “where the hell are we going?”

“To the facility’s core.” She told me and we started moving faster.

I started getting nervous, I could  _ hear _ something echoing our way, like something big was moving around.

It had to have been Birkin roaming around in the area, and way too close for me to be okay with it.

“He’s around here...” I muttered and made sure I was fully loaded. I knew my gun was pretty fucking useless against him, but what else could I do?

“Who?” She had turned to face me.

She… she didn’t know?

Something smashed through the wall beside us, showering us in debris. I had fallen backwards and the woman had fearlessly rushed through it to the other side of it, jumping and rolling to land on the floor.

A few heavy stomps and who appeared but  _ Birkin _ himself, clad in his tattered lab coat and clothing. In his mutated hand he was holding a massive piece of twisted steel as a makeshift club, covered in immense amounts of blood and gore that dribbled onto the floor from a fresh kill.

Immediately I could see how fucked I was.

“Shit!” I backed away and aimed my shotgun up at him, and in my haste I ended up firing directly into one of the fleshly pustules on his body.

It burst violently, splattering the walls and floor in glowing orange ooze as he roared and swung hard.

I found myself on the tail-end of his  _ club _ .

Something all but  _ cracked _ in my body as everything was suddenly a blur, and I was weightless through the air.

I slammed into a wall soon after, hard concrete nearly destroying my back as I fell onto the floor and dropped my shotgun.

“Hrk!” I laid there, ears ringing as Birkin stomped around in a frenzy. I couldn’t focus, my eyes were blurry and I felt sick to my stomach.

Nausea welled up like a balloon, threatening to burst at any moment.

_ I gotta get moving! _

My limbs felt like they were noodles, and every movement sent a pang of agony lancing through my chest, like something was  _ crushing me. _

_ N-not like this… not like this! _

Gunfire from nearby echoed like lightning strikes, and I heard Birkin’s deafening bellow fill the halls shortly after. Terror filled me and I thought myself a goner, that he was going to strike me down once and for all.

But he stomped away after whoever was shooting, drawing him away from me.

Was it…?

“Get up!”

I felt an arm grab mine and I was yanked to my feet, my chest burning like a thousand fires.

It was that USS woman! But wasn’t she the only one down here? Who the hell else was shooting?

I felt another wave of pain crash through me and yelped as she hauled me off. “F-fuck...”

Something broke inside me, or cracked, I don’t know, but it was burning like hellfire. Every step was a monumental task, like hiking up a steep path covered in mud.

The woman and I made our way down the hall as Birkin stormed after the other gunner, whoever it was. I swore I heard yelling but I couldn’t have been certain.

We made it down the hall and turned, and headed down some stairs that led into a large room full of doors, some I barely made out through my blurred vision.

We slammed through a door and she let me go, letting me stumble over to a table to catch myself.

Fuck, I could barely stand.

Not good.

“I guess that’s who you were talking about?” The woman asked me.

I coughed, immediately tasting iron on my tongue.

“Lady, no offense, but  _ who the fuck _ are you?” I struggled to get myself into a chair and sit down without choking on my own blood, which was already a difficult endeavor. “You’re acting  _ awfully _ strange for someone dressed up like a goddamn SS Trooper.”

The woman put a hand to her mask and sighed through the filter, before mumbling to herself. I just barely made out something that sounded  _ strangely _ like ‘stupid Terrans’ or something. She finally turned around to face me, red lenses staring directly at me.

“Who I am, doesn’t matter right now.  _ You _ don’t need to know, it wouldn’t benefit you to have that information and would only get you in more hot water then you’re already in right now simply by  _ being here. _ ” She resembled a snake in that moment, her voice barely more than a  _ hiss _ as she glared. Even through the hard material of the helmet, I could see the glare of her eyes. “Why am I here? Why does it matter?”

Damn she’s salty. I grumbled before staring right back, “I know a lot of things, lady… especially about the USS that you’re a part of, and the way you’re acting towards me; helping me out and not shooting me for so much as being down here? You’re not a part of the USS, are you?”

I was calling her bluff. There was no way this chick was a USS soldier. She was being way too…  _ friendly _ with me, friendly for a USS grunt anyway. Plus with all of that gear she was carrying, and how she acted in general just felt off.

She was quiet for a long while, standing stock still as if lost in thought. I had to have called it, there was no way.

She shook her head before reaching up and grabbing her helmet and mask, and she unclasped them before taking them off. “You’re right, I’m not USS, but it doesn’t matter.” Once her headgear came off, cherry red hair spilled down either of her shoulders like waterfalls before a pair of ruby red eyes glared into mine. Her pale face held soft features, yet was angled and fierce like a hawk.

I couldn’t help but stare at her, eyes locked onto hers like heat seeking missiles. Despite the heavy gear she wore, I could tell her body was built pretty damn well and the tighter portions of the suit only accentuated that simple fact. On top of the incredibly unnatural hair and eye color, she was  _ gorgeous. _

“My name is Hawkeye,” she told me with a solid frown, her voice clearer without the mask now. Her voice was commanding, imposing, a voice that told me she was a duty first kind of woman. “I’m with an organization sent here to investigate the viral outbreak and ascertain the dangers of the biological weapon Umbrella has developed.”

I was pretty fucking dumbstruck by this woman’s appearence it took a moment for what she said to register in my mind, which was too busy being thrown for a loop trying to figure out how anyone  _ looked  _ like this in Resident Evil’s universe.

“I… uh...” It felt like a ball of iron had lodged itself in my throat, and I struggled to get it down. She had her helmet tucked between her side and her arm, and just kept that…  _ stare _ going, it felt imposing, this fierce dominant energy radiated from her.

It was kinda hot, not gonna lie.

“I see… uh...” It took a bit to get my bearings again, and it didn’t take as long for me to get back onto the right track and get back to figuring out what the fuck was going on. “Lady, uh… I don’t know how long you’ve  _ been here _ but I can tell you first hand that this virus? It’s more dangerous than you can imagine. Right now it’s on a path of destruction that’s going to wipe out this whole damn  _ city. _ ”

Her eyes narrowed. “So it’s not contained to this facility?”

_ Does she not know? _ “Have you not been outside?” I asked, and began to wonder more and more about what was going on. “The city is tearing itself apart, people are dying in  _ droves _ to this thing _. _ ”

How could you be an agent and sent here to investigate this virus and  _ not _ find out the city is full of mutant undead freaks? It’s fucking impossible to miss outside, they’re literally  _ everywhere. _

“Hell no it isn’t,” I told her and winced when a spike of pain ran through my chest. I needed to get something to heal this, and soon. “The virus isn’t contained, it’s been unleashed into the city and the people are all turning into those monsters… every single one of them.”

“Last I checked, the city was perfectly fine.” Hawkeye stated and set her helmet and mask aside before going over to what looked like a medical cabinet.

“No offense but are you  _ fucking high? _ ” How could she believe that? “I was just up there! The whole reason I’m down here was because I got  _ chased down here _ by the monsters that overrun the city!”

“You’re just a robber, you admitted it yourself.” She pointed out, and I frowned.

“Considering the city’s going to hell right now, I doubt anyone’s gonna miss a few thousand dollars, besides I  _ told _ you why I did it.” I couldn’t believe this. “Besides, this ain’t about me… you said you were going to the facility’s core, what’s down there that you need anyway? Isn’t that where the power systems are? Like generators and shit?”

“No.” She shook her head and after fishing through the cabinet, she pulled out a first aid spray, one of Umbrella’s  _ incredibly _ helpful inventions. “The Umbrella Core is where the facility’s data banks are located, a repository of information that Umbrella has kept on all of their projects.”

“So you’re gonna go down there and hack into them, I guess?” She nodded and tossed the spray can my way. I barely caught it, and looked over the back of it for a moment.  _ Would this even heal my ribs if they were cracked, or worse… broken? _

“I need to find out more about the threat this corporation poses.” She told me as I took off my vest and clothing to administer the spray.

“It poses a pretty damn huge threat, I’ll tell you now.” I shook the can and sprayed it on my ribs where I had gotten hit, and I noticed a massive purple bruise forming. Not a good sign, but hopefully the seemingly magical properties of the t-virus will help in fixing it up. It stung, but I took that as a good sign. “The company’s a front for biological weapons development, specifically the T-Virus and G-Virus, the latter of which is studied and developed in this facility. I don’t know if the core you’re looking for has information on the T-Virus, but if it does… then that’s where you need to go.”

Hawkeye fixed me with a look and I suddenly felt a bit nervous. That was a bit more than I intended to tell her, but I didn’t say anything more.

“How do  _ you _ know so much about this?” She rose an eyebrow, her hand falling near her hip… specifically resting on the holster.

“Does that matter?” I shot back with narrowed eyes. “I just know some things, that’s all  _ I _ can tell  _ you. _ ”

Hawkeye huffed through her nose and walked towards the door, but not before I heard ‘ _ smartass’ _ under her breath.

She wasn’t wrong.

I waited for the spray to take effect, hopefully fast enough to get me moving again. I wasn’t sure if the small amount of T-Cells in the damn thing would even begin repairing the damage I took, but I remained hopeful. Reality is often disappointing.

_ I need to get out of this place, I can’t stay down here while birkin is running around. _ He was a big threat to my survival, and I had to focus my efforts on escaping before this damn city was turned into a pile of rubble and ash.  _ I wonder who she really is… the hair and eyes are definitely not normal, but she’s not some kind of mutant either. _ It bugged me, who the hell was she really?

Something told me she wasn’t a threat to me, call it a gut feeling, but there was obviously something more at play here that I wasn’t seeing.

“How long until you’re able to start moving?” Hawkeye questioned as she put her mask and helmet back on, hiding her features once more.

Kinda missed her face already, she was pretty damn hot.

“I don’t know… I only used this stuff once but I didn’t have an injury this bad before.” I had gotten into a car crash, and while it healed me then, would it now?

A burning sensation in my chest suddenly made itself known. My hand drifted to my injured side, and I felt my ribs. They felt strange, and after a brief moment I swore one of them  _ moved _ slightly, followed by what sounded like a soft pop.

_ Guess that answers that question… fuck, that stings. _ I grunted as another pop sounded, and I struggled to stand up. It didn’t hurt as badly as before, so I assumed in a few minutes I would be ready to go. “Maybe a few minutes or so, I don’t know.”

A beeping came from her wrist device, something that looked like a PDA strapped to the bottom side of her arm. “Well you better hope that stuff works fast, I don’t know how much longer we can stay here before stuff starts getting ugly.” She looked down at the screen and stared through rapidly scrolling lines of something I couldn’t even begin to understand.

“Dare I ask what you mean by that?” I grabbed a hold of my pistol, having lost my shotgun in the fight with Birkin, I was down to only my handguns now.

She looked at me, as an alarm sounded. “Someone’s activated the facility’s security protocols.”

I blinked as lights bathed the room in flashing red and yellow hues. “...Security protocols?”

I forgot the room we were in was rather large, lots of tables full of equipment and shit. The wall that was on the far side of the room suddenly retracted into the ceiling like a hatch, and a large contraption inside of the small previously unknown room rolled out.

My jaw dropped at the sight of a black machine on three legs rolling out with a whirring noise. The top half resembled something like a bulky armored humanoid while the lower half was a pair of articulated legs, no doubt allowing it to raise and lower at will. A single red eye in its armored helmet looked around the room before zeroing in on us as I detected the smell of  _ diesel _ coming from it.

The eye glowed brighter and it rumbled like a truck engine before raising up, standing almost six feet in height of prue steel and iron. Its arms extended outward, twisting slightly as if to loosen up before the end of the one pointed at the two of us.

It was a long double barreled gun of some sort.

**_“Security Protocol initiated. Non-hostile workforce is advised to leave immediately.”_ ** Rumbled the machine as it zeroed us into its sights.  **_“High level threat detected. Code Red, initiating anti-threat protocols.”_ **

“Fuck me.”

I ducked down as the barrels began to spin, before the thunderous sound of it firing deafened me. I huddled down into a fetal position below the dense metal table I was behind, covering my ears as the robot unleashed  _ hell _ on the two of us.

I couldn’t hear anything except the gunfire.

_ Son of a bitch! Since when did Umbrella have fucking security bots?! No! You don’t get to do that! _

Bits of debris rained down on me as the wall behind us were completely torn apart, revealing piping and wiring that was hidden behind thick metal. Whatever round this thing was using, it was tearing the place down. The massive  _ chunk chunk _ of the HMG was enough to keep me down and send me into flight mode, yet my legs were  _ jelly _ .

I couldn’t move.

We stayed in cover for the time being until the gunfire finally stopped.

**_“Obedience Breeds Discipline, Discipline Breeds Unity, Unity Breeds Power, Power is Life.”_ ** The machine rumbled with its deep voice, before the heavy set frame began to move. Its movement was slow and heavy, every  _ thump _ of its legs on the floor telling me it was getting closer.

Jesus Christ.

“Come on!”

I was grabbed by Hawkeye and she threw me towards the door with… surprising strength.

Literally, she  _ threw me _ at the goddamn door, like I weighed  _ nothing _ .

“Fuck!” I yelped before slamming into it, forcing it open and landing in the hall outside. I heard a click clack noise come from the robot as Hawkeye dashed out, grabbing and yanking me up to my feet.

“Run!”

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

I was silently cursing as we bolted down the hall, while behind us the machine clunked its way after us.

I couldn’t believe that Umbrella had such a thing in here, but I knew it wasn’t the only one. If they had access to robotics technology, then no doubt they had dozens more of those damn things roaming around the damn facility.

Who the fuck turned them on, was my question.

**_“Viral outbreak confirmed, lockdown initiated, quarantine protocol 0A-9 activated.”_ ** I heard a voice from a PA system announce, as lights turned on and I heard distant thunks throughout the facility, probably heavy doors falling shut to lock the beasties in.

As well as keep us from escaping.

Our radios crackled once we rounded a corner, and I heard someone on the other end trying to speak.  _ “T-this is Goblin-6! I need help! I’m trapped in the lower levels and I can’t move!” _ Goblin 6 was a familiar name, a USS soldier that Hunk left for dead.

She was still alive?

_ “Alpha Team, Goblin 6… I’m currently at Point K12, in the sewers. Anyone on this frequency... p-please respond...” _

“Sounds like trouble.” I commented as I pulled out my pistol. We didn’t encounter any undead, but I wasn’t holding out hope for that lasting very much longer.

“Not our problem.” Hawkeye told me as the stairs leading down came into view. “I have one priority and  _ that’s _ finding the Databank, that’s all. I shouldn’t even have you with me.”

“I didn’t exactly  _ ask _ for your help, ya know.” I replied as Goblin kept trying to get someone’s attention. I have pondered responding, before someone else did it for me.

_ “Goblin 6, this is Hunk.” _

_ “H-Hunk! I request assistan-” _

_ “Not my priority.” _ He told her.

A few moments of painful silence before she replied.  _ “W-what? Wait, don’t leave me here!” _

_ “This is war. Survival is your responsibility.” _

Then the radio had gone dark, and we were left in silence.

_ USS, the epitome of zero fucks given. _ I remarked as we continued downward, until we came across a large hatch that had closed down, blocking our path.

Hawkeye dropped down near the keypad quickly and pulled out her little hacking tool, before getting to work.

“So we’re just going to leave her to die then?” I asked, and Hawkeye was silent. “Hunk is right, this is war, but...”

She was making some pretty good progress, if the green lights on her device were any indication. “You can’t save everyone, kid. You gotta learn that now, or you won’t survive long.”

I looked away from her and stared up at the stairs, keeping watch for any threats. I hated that she was  _ right _ , it was a simple fact that I refused to accept, and I’ll fully admit it.

You couldn’t save everyone, no matter how hard you tried.

It’s honestly easier to be bad than good.

Behind me the beeping increased in volume before the door suddenly began to slide open, and the way down was opened to us.

“Let’s go.”

I sighed and followed after her.

The path we were headed down now differed from the usual stark white halls, science-esque atmosphere and the cleanliness. A few halls and doorways later and the area was more industrial and engineering looking, with lots of service entry points, panels, wiring and pipes leading all around, carrying the basic necessities the facility would require to keep functioning.

We made it onto steel walkways suspended over deep chasms leading down into god knows where, probably areas where workers would stumble into to perform basic maintenance on the systems for the whole place. I guessed Hawkeye was taking the back door to the databank she was looking for.

It made sense after I thought about it. With the facility on lockdown, odds are there would be less doors and security bots down these pathways, which was a good thing.

It also meant we were going further down, further away from the exit I wished I was at instead.

_ I wonder how close we are to Goblin’s position… _

I was starting to wonder if I should actually try to help her, despite how right Hunk and Hawkeye were.

We made our way to a ladder that led further down, into a narrow passage that led to god knows where. I didn’t like being down here, cause it  _ felt _ like something was watching us, and the last time I felt that, I was right.

Lickers, zombies, maybe Birkin or some other kind of fucking mutant hunting us down.

I checked my handgun magazine before shaking my head.

_ Just stay calm, you got this. _

The lights flickered before turning off, and the whirring I heard in the background suddenly ceased... 

I wish I hadn't thought that.

Our flashlights clicked on to illuminate the darkness, but it just made it worse somehow. The beams didn’t go far enough to penetrate the darkness, and the void of shadows that shrouded us was dense, almost like a fog. My mind conjured up plenty of pretty images of twisted freaks hiding in wait, stalking us, waiting for us to stumble into the grasp.

“Lights on, no talking… let’s just move.” Hawkeye lifted up her AR and aimed it forward, with the flashlight mounted to her helmet and her gun, she had plenty of light, more so with mine involved.

I didn’t so much as utter a reply, I only silently followed her through the darkness and hoped we reached a lit up area soon.

Why did the power suddenly go off? From my understanding, facilities like this, especially  _ Umbrella’s _ had to have massive backup generators somewhere to keep the lights on in case of a blackout. There was something wrong about this, it  _ stunk _ of sabotage.

Something was going on, something that I couldn’t even begin to understand.

The metal walkway we were on was the only source of noise. We carefully crept across it, producing the dullest thunks of boots on metal, but other than that it was an uncomfortable silence that made my skin crawl.

Something crashed up ahead, something so loud it stopped both of us in our tracks as the walkway shook. We aimed our guns forward, but we couldn’t see a  _ damn _ thing because of how dark it was.

_ Shit, what is it? _ I aimed above Hawkeye’s crouched form, determined to get her back if shit went down.

Heavy footfalls stomped towards us, slow and methodical that bespoke of something massive making its way towards us. I didn’t like it…

It was worse when the figure appeared in our lights, and once again I found myself staring down a fucking  _ Tyrant _ . It was the same as the others, the massive bullet proof coat, the grey skin and emotionless face.

It stared at us with those blank eyes and I felt nothing except the most abject fear coursing through my body, like a flash flood.

We were in a stare off, no one moved.

No one spoke.

We  _ knew _ we were fucked, and so did he.

Then he dashed forward, quickly closing the distance between us.

Hawkeye open fired and so did I. I moved away from her as we fired on him from both sides, but our rounds were deflected and he knew to block his head, his only weak spot.

Nothing we shot at him worked!

Before I knew it Hawkeye ended up getting sent flying, slammed into by the Tyrant with his arm and flung back down the hall before he turned to me.

My reflexes acted before I could even think, and I blocked my gut just in time to catch his massive fist.

The air was taken from me as I too, was punched off of the walkway and falling down into the darkness down below.

I could make out the form of the Tyrant stomping after Hawkeye as I descended into the void.

Just my luck...


	8. Back With The Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After surviving his fall, Dutch finds his way back into the company of the Outbreak crew led by Kevin Ryman; an RPD officer. The group have split up and are trying to find their way through and back to the surface, but during this time, Cindy tells him something that only brings to light more questions then answers...

I love pain, it tells me where it hurts so I can stop hurting there in the future.

Right now though that pain was  _ everywhere _ , so I couldn’t exactly do much to get rid of it, let alone heal it.

My flashlight was laying nearby and lit up the small area I was in, but that was about it. I don’t know how I survived the fall, but I wasn’t going to complain…

...much.

_ Goddamn, I got some crazy luck or something. _ My body burned when I tried sitting up, but I fought through it and crawled over to where my gun had fallen. It shone against a bloodied wall and only worsened how bad my situation had to have been.

After picking it up and making sure it was ready to go, I stood and took a look at my surroundings.

It was just a concrete maze, smooth walls of grey splattered in blood and long dead corpses lying around, battered and beaten bodies of engineers for the company. I saw a lot of tools scattered about, covered in blood and oil.

Probably in the middle of fixing something before they were attacked and flung down here like dolls… yet I survived, they didn’t, why?

_ Luck of the irish I guess. _

I took a moment to calm my nerves and started to move, gun raised and eyes peeled for any kind of threats, be they Grunts or otherwise. I could handle them just fine, but anything else? It’d take a good chunk of my willpower not to freak out from everything going on.

I was in way over my head, and I’m honestly surprised I lasted  _ this _ long.

I sped up my pace, eager to get the fuck out of here. There had to be some kind of service ladder around here I could use,  _ something _ I could use to get myself to safety and away from whatever was lurking down here, waiting to eat me while I’m still fresh and kicking.

I stumbled through the darkness and past more bodies that had been dumped down here, some that looked like scientists and other lab workers. A lot of them had been pulverized into paste, hit with such force it crushed their bones into jelly and sent them down here to suffer in agony, if they somehow survived. Judging from the blood and handprints everywhere, it seemed a scant few  _ had. _

_ Gotta stay sharp and find a way out of here, as fast as I can. _ I doubled down on my efforts and started to lightly jog, led by my light and the hope of finding an exit somewhere.

I came across something that told me I was heading in the right direction. A service ladder going up, but it had suffered some damage somehow. The metal had snapped halfway up, and the pieces were laying around me.

A body was nearby, clutching a clipboard.

Curiosity got to me and I plucked it from his grasp, and looked over what was on it.

_ ‘I don’t know who broke the damned ladder, but thanks! Now I have to spend half my shift down here trying to fix the damn thing. Jesus guys, it looks like someone ripped it in two! I don’t know who did this, but if I find out who the fuck did this I’m reporting your ass to management!’ _

The rest of the paper was covered in blood.

It did look like someone ripped it in half, which was a monumental feat to achieve. Something told me something got loose down here and did the job, but what?

I tossed the clipboard and looked at the signs nearby, which told me there was a maintenance tunnel nearby I could use. It probably led to the sewage and waste tunnels, and hopefully  _ those _ led outside this damn place.

I made my way down the path until I came across a large opening in the wall, a sort of culvert that slanted down into even more darkness.

Of course.

Moving forward, I adjusted slightly and carefully made my way down the incline. It was steep, but my footing was fairly stable. I tripped a couple of times, but steadied myself on the wall to keep myself from falling down completely.

Before long I had made it down to the tunnel, which was dark, cramped, and smelled like death.

Lovely.

Wouldn’t expect anything less at this rate.

I shone my light to either side, the route left was blocked off by an iron grate, the way right was open. Guess that’s where I was headed, I could only wonder what lovely beasties would await me further down here.

I had a feeling I’d run into a Hunter at some point, then I’d be screwed.

I don’t know if I’m fast enough to face one of those.

My footsteps echoed in the empty tunnel as I scanned the insides of the tunnel, and I saw lights that barely flickered with any power. Someone had to have sabotaged the power system, but who and why? This didn’t happen in any of the games, then again Umbrella didn’t have armed security robots that came out of the walls.

There was something different about this version of Resident Evil, something that I wasn’t seeing.

It was annoying.

“Where the hell are we?” I heard further ahead, and I paused.

People?

“I don’t fucking know.” Came a voice, Alyssa? “It all looks the same down here.”

“Is that a light?” I swore that was Jim.

I sped up into a jog and closed in on the voices, shining my light ahead. That had to be the Outbreak crew, they were down here? I figured but I thought they would have gotten out by now!

I came across an intersection in the tunnel, once I reached it I found a couple of flashlights shining in my face. “Gah!”

“Hey, it’s that guy!”

“From the hospital?”

I never did tell them my name.

“That guy has a name.” I waved them off to get the flashlight out of my face, and when my eyes focused I noticed half of the group was here; Kevin, Jim, Alyssa… I didn’t see Cindy or the others anywhere. “Dutch is the name.”

“Thought you died, man.” Jim said. “Last we saw you was at the hospital!”

“I got lucky.” I explained as Kevin and Alyssa looked down the tunnels we were in, making sure they were clear. “Managed to fight my way out and meet up with some soldiers, they helped me out but I got separated from em and ended up down here.” Not the full story, but they don’t need to know every detail. “Right now I’m trying to find a way out.”

“Same here.” Kevin relaxed and looked towards me. I noticed his armor had taken quite a beating, and he had an MP5. “We found our way down here maybe an hour ago...” His face screwed up.

As did mine.

_ An hour ago? But it’s easily been a day and a half since I last saw them. _

“How did you get down here so fast?” Alyssa questioned from behind me, and I started to wonder that myself. “It’s been maybe an hour since we last saw you.”

My mind felt like it was about to burn out from everything screwy going on. So I shook my head and rubbed my temples. “I... honestly lost track of time, so I have no idea.”  _ That made no sense, it couldn’t have been an hour! It was a day at least, two at most. There is no way in hell it was an hour since we were last together. _ “Anyway, where’re the others?”

Kevin looked at me a moment longer then I would have liked, before he asked, “do I know you from somewhere?”

“Aside from the hospital? Not to my knowledge.” I admitted. That was our only encounter, we hadn’t met before that. “I remember you from the hospital but that’s it.”

He wasn’t content with that answer it seemed. “No, no I  _ definitely _ know you from somewhere else… you with the RPD? One of the newbies?”

_ The RPD? _ “I… no?”

“You know Jill Valentine?”

Am I having a stroke or something?

“He doesn’t really strike me as cop material.” Alyssa broke in and walked over, where she stepped in between us. “Mark and the others got split off from us when we ran into some kind of overgrown freak with a pipe. We’ve been trying to find them but haven’t had much luck.”

Birkin, damn. So they were somewhere else down here? That was just swell. “Shit, any clues where they might be?”’

“Goose egg.”

“Figured as much.” I checked my handgun and looked towards the tunnels. “Shit, we gotta find them then and get the hell out of this place.” Cindy came to mind for a brief moment, shame she was missing. I kind of missed her.

“We’re trying to find them right now.” Alyssa told me and adjusted her jacket, which I noticed was open. She had unbuttoned it at some point, showing the dirtied dress shirt underneath that was snugly wrapped around her large bust.

That must have slipped my mind, I don’t remember her tits being that big. Not quite as big as Cindy’s but still more than a handful.

Did I fall into some kind of Resident Evil anime where all of the girls have huge tits?

Not that I was complaining or anything, it was just an oddity I noticed.

I managed not to stare though, for too long that is. As much as I’d love to imagine what they looked like without the white shirt in the way, the tautness of it gave me plenty to think about.

“I’ll join you guys then, I’m not too keen on being alone down here, especially with Birkin running around.” Right on time, I heard a roar in the distance, a faint echo from afar. He wasn’t nearby, but still hearing that was enough to get the blood pumping and make me nervous.

“Birkin?” Kevin turned to me, alongside Jim and Alyssa.

“The big guy you ran into with the pipe? He had a giant eyeball on his shoulder?” Alyssa and the others nodded. “That’s William Birkin, he  _ was _ one of the scientists who worked in this underground lab on shit.”

Alyssa’s eyes suddenly lit up, and I saw her fingering around in her pocket for something. “So you know what this place is?”

I forgot she was an investigative reporter.

“I do.” I nodded as my mind raced.  _ If I’m gonna be stuck in this world, I might as well try and use the information I know to my advantage. _ “It’s an Umbrella facility, but it’s primarily used for studying and developing a viral bioweapon called the G-Virus.”

“Bioweapon? The  _ fuck? _ ” Jim shivered and Kevin looked down in thought.

“Is that what made those things outside?” Kevin asked me. “The zombies?”

“That was a different virus, the T-Virus, Umbrella made that one too.” I explained. “These zombies are the byproduct of their research into biological weapons, among other things.” I saw Alyssa furiously scribbling down the notes, as Jim and Kevin eyed me. “Birkin? He directly injected himself with the G-Virus due to some fuckery involving a deal with the government gone wrong, he was going to hand himself and the virus over to them, but the deal went south, so here we are.”

“So Umbrella has been secretly developing bioweapons? So the pharmaceutical company is a front?” She concluded, and I nodded.

“Don’t get me wrong, their products are 100% legit and helpful, but behind the scenes they’re into black market weapons deals, biological weapons development, and a whole slew of other shady shit… a lot of people have died because of them.” I shuddered, actually experiencing what’s happening in the city, and beyond is just… horrifying.

Alyssa tapped the pencil to her chin. “The disappearances in the mountains and forests… all of those murders...” She looked to me for an answer.

“Umbrella,” I finished for her, adding, “since the mansion in the mountains blew up, another facility of theirs that the Stars Members investigated, a lot of Umbrella’s bioweapons were unleashed into the forests, they’re still out there right now, I guarantee it.”

“As fascinating as this is, we should keep moving.” Kevin told us. “I didn’t know that about Umbrella, and hopefully once we get out of the city, we can do something about it.” he turned to head down the tunnel. 

“We don’t have any proof, which is the biggest issue we’re facing right now.” I stopped him, drawing his attention for a brief moment. “If we’re going to bring them to justice? We’d need a mountain of evidence… you guys forget that Umbrella is a  _ multinational _ corporation, it’s a borderline megacorporation, no doubt they have a lot of people in their pockets, including the US Government.”

Kevin started moving again, and Jim followed as Alyssa stayed by my side. “Dude, the whole city is full of those things! There’s evidence all around us!” Jim’s arms flailed about as he gave me an incredulous look. “How can we not use this?”

“Raccoon City is going to be destroyed.” I stated, and the group stopped again.

“What?!” Kevin whirled around and stared at me. “How? Why?”

“You guys don’t really understand the magnitude of what’s going on here, do you?” I looked at the trio, and sighed when none of them came up with an answer. “This city is the epicenter of something that’s going to change the world… thousands of lives were lost in the pursuit of something nearly impossible to achieve. The US government has ties to Umbrella, specifically to their bioweapons branch… they commissioned Umbrella for the development of BOWs to use in future conflicts, if word got out that the government was involved in one of the worst tragedies in US history?”

“It would be utterly devastating.” Alyssa murmured to herself as she thumbed through her pocket notebook. “I can’t even begin to imagine what would happen...”

“None of it will be good.” I replied and looked down at my watch. “The government is trying to evacuate as many people as they can in the hopes of this getting under control soon, but Umbrella is just using this as a testing ground for marketable BOWs, they’re not trying to stop it.” I grumbled. “They’re going to wait as long as they can, before dropping a nuke on the city, erasing it and covering it up as a nuclear meltdown.”

“Jesus… we have to warn someone.“ Kevin checked his MP5 and looked back down the tunnel. “We have to find the others and warn the survivors.”

“We’d have to move fast, but even if we do, finding them is going to be difficult… getting out of the city even more so.” I told him as we started moving again, heading down the tunnel to hopefully an exit, or wherever the others were hiding. “The roadways are all blocked off, and the US Army is stationed at every exit waiting to either shoot or capture anyone trying to escape.”

Distant gunshots stopped us from going any further on the subject, and we looked in the direction of said gunfire. It was further ahead, someone was still alive.

“A survivor?” Jim wondered, as Alyssa loaded up a fresh magazine into her handgun.

“You said Umbrella did this… does that mean their employees are trustworthy?” She asked me, fixing me with a hard look.

Guess I was her information guy now.

“The Umbrella Security Service are highly trained soldiers, ex-Spetsnaz, ex-soldiers, all hired to do the dirty work and act as the sword of Umbrella. UBCS are just your run of the mill mercenaries, they’re more or less innocent in this outbreak save for two soldiers. But aside from that? The scientists and other employees are virtually harmless, save for a handful.” I made sure my own gun was ready as we headed down the tunnel, following the sounds of gunfire.

It sounded like a handgun.

“We better worry about that later, right now someone needs our help.” Kevin told us and we sped up.

The tunnel we were in turned before going further down until we entered into a large underground canal system, probably one of the sewage passages for the facility. I could already  _ smell _ it, but held my tongue.

“Oh  _ fuck _ it stinks down here!” Jim cried, pulling up his shirt collar around his nose.

Alyssa shushed him. “Keep it down, we don’t know if anything’s lurking around here.”

“There most definitely is something lurking down here, watching… waiting.” I commented and immediately got a glare from Alyssa.

“Not helping.”

“Ain’t trying to help.”

Once we started exploring the sewer system, we had split off and headed down separate walkways running along the water way. Concrete paths led deeper through the tunnel, with Alyssa and I on one side, Jim and Kevin on the other.

I took the silence as a decent enough sign, mostly for us. The gunfire stopped, so whoever had the gun either won and escaped, or ran out and died, we’d find out soon enough I’m sure.

“So how do you know all of this?” Alyssa poked me as we walked along, drawing my attention. “You seem to know a lot about what’s going on.”

“I have my sources.” My gun and flashlight remained level, lighting up the way for us. Everything refused to stop hurting, every ache and pain was a series of pulses that just  _ kept on and on. _ It was getting annoying. “Let’s just say I know some people, savvy?”

Some howls alerted us up ahead to something lurking in the darkness, kind of like dogs or something. I immediately balked and swallowed, Cerberus hounds came to mind, the T-Virus infected dogs that roamed the woodlands and city of Raccoon.

They were fast, vicious, and hard to shoot properly. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but if I had to fight them… then I had to.

The four of us came up on an open area, carved out of the concrete with a massive tower extending from the very bottom of a deep chasm to the tip top of the ceiling, reaching dozens of stories high with massive steel platforms at every level. The water in the canal we followed flowed this way and directly into a massive pit below, where magma just so happened to be bubbling and burning brightly.

Why there was magma, I have  _ no fucking idea _ , so why not?

A lot of undead stumbled around aimlessly, some even tumbling over the edge and into the magma below and immediately burning up. I saw lights running along this massive tower, stretching from the bottom to the top, and thrumming with some kind of energy… some kind of geothermal plant?

I wondered if this was the core that Hawkeye was looking for?

It’d make sense, this place just  _ oozed _ Central Core vibes.

“Where the heck are we?” Alyssa looked around as Kevin and Jim kept an eye out, looking for any sign of their friends.

I heard gunshots from above, thunderous booms and flashes from several levels up. We all looked above and saw a fight going down, but between who and what wasn’t clear.

I readied my handgun and took a deep breath. “Whatever’s going on, it’s up above.” I heard a scream, and it sounded  _ awfully _ familiar.

“That’s Cindy!” Jim screamed and pointed above, and I swore I thought I saw the light blue of her blouse amidst the steel mesh of the platforms up above.

“Shit, let’s move then!” I darted off from the group, heading for some metal stairs nearby and quickly climbing up. I skipped several steps at a time, legs burning almost immediately as the others followed behind.

Those gunshots would bring in more of them, there was no telling how many infected were down here, waiting to find survivors to munch on. A few of them blocked our path upward, but I didn’t hesitate to blow their heads off.

The thing is, with them being undead like this, it  _ proved difficult. _ Headshots didn’t seem to be as effective as they were earlier, I’d take a chunk off their head, blow a hole straight through their flesh and bone, showering the ones behind them in viscera and gore, but they just-

**BOOM**

Kept

**BOOM**

Coming!

It took more shots then I would have liked to down the zombies standing in my way, every shot I spent was one less bullet for something potentially bigger that was waiting for us up above. From the stomping and roars, it sounded like something  _ huge. _ If I had to guess… maybe Birkin or another one of the Tyrants, or something.

Kevin quickly joined me with his MP5 and open fired on the zombies I couldn’t get to quickly enough, the ones who still blocked our path. The rapid fire of the 9mm tore them to shreds, easily downing several in one quick burst, but they didn’t stay down for long.

Riddled in bullet holes and oozing brackish ooze, they’d clamber back to the feet in no time and stumble towards us with their mouths agape and arms outstretched.

“Goddamn it, why’re these things so tough all of a sudden!” I backed up and fired a few more shots into one, finally blowing a big enough hole in its skull to kill it. Kevin had done the same, switching his MP5 to burst fire and letting out a few precise rounds in rapid succession.

“No clue.” Was his only answer before Alyssa pushed back us and rushed towards the stairs.

“Come on, they need our help!” She shouted and fired off her own gun at a zombie that stumbled down the stairs towards her. She must have had a more powerful round, as the hole she had made in the corpse was  _ huge. _

We followed after her quickly.

Alyssa tore a path through for us, taking carefully aimed shots and downing one after the other.

It didn’t take us long to reach the level where the others were.

The opening was littered in shell casings and I had to duck to avoid gunfire from David and Mark, who were off to the far side and peppering a large creature with round after round, but it only pissed it off more and more. The thing was fucking huge, with hulking arms and a body covered in bony protrusions, and… security armor? Or what was left of it, the ripped and tattered uniform of a UBCS soldier covered its body.

What the fuck kind of T-Virus mutation was this?

I had never seen anything like that in the Resident Evil bestiary in all my days. It was some new kind of mutant, but how?

The lumbering gorilla-like beast slammed his fists into the steel floor of the platform, sending a shockwave and a thunderous shout bouncing off of the walls. It propelled itself towards David and Mark, the two barely managing to dodge its charge in time.

Off to the side I saw an injured Yoko next to George, as Cindy tried to apply some kind of healing herb to her wounds.

I quickly opened fire on the creature from behind as Kevin moved to the side, peppering it with gunfire. “Surround it!” He yelled and turned the SMG to full auto, and unleashed hell.

I pulled out my other handgun and dual-wielded, and fired every shot I had into the damn thing as I moved around the massive Core that made up this pillar. Every bullet we fired hit the flesh of the beast and drew blood, but I doubt we were doing much damage to it.

If anything, we were just pissing it off.

Suddenly it swung around as David and Mark recuperated, its heavy rock-like fists caused it to stumble and throw its immense weight towards me.

The thing was a fucking monster.

I backpedaled and unleashed every round I had left in my handguns as it lumbered towards me, and I saw its face.

Twisted and gnarled under the violent increase in testosterone and muscle mass, even its teeth had become jagged fangs that protruded from its lower jaw like a warthog’s tusks. The eyes were solid white, similar to a Tyrant, but… there was something else in them.

Not that I had time to do anything about it, as the thing suddenly charged out of nowhere and made contact with me using its bulky shoulder.

I had been hit by a car when I was younger, so this was a similar experience, except full on.

I was flung back and lost the grip on my left handgun before I impacted the hard concrete wall of the massive shaft. I slid down as the beast growled, and raised its colossal bony fists-

-only for a pipe to be thrown at his bulky armored head, drawing his attention to the right of me.

I was able to follow his wretched gaze and I saw Cindy standing there, still in her - now unbuttoned - waitress outfit, and holding another pipe in her hand.

“Stay away from him!” She shouted as David and Mark recovered and reloaded, as Kevin got to a better position near George and Yoko. Jim was hiding somewhere near Alyssa, who was keeping her gun trained on the thing.

Why was she suddenly so protective?

The fucking monster lumbered towards her, causing her to stumble back as the realization of what she had done finally registered in her mind. Cindy backed up, clutching her pipe desperately as the others unleashed round after round into the beast, but the bullets only tore chunks off and embedded into his coarse flesh, he shrugged them off as if getting hit by gnats.

I bit back the pain I was in, fighting off the burning in my ribcage as I raised my remaining pistol, having lost my other guns during the fighting. I took aim, and I fired several shots into his helmet.

The helmet that had been stuck to his head, conforming around the growth cracked and split like an egg, before popping off into pieces. The head was finally exposed, revealing its bald head and the splotches of throbbing flesh underneath.

A single eye flicked around violently in its socket, covered in pustules and oozing some kind of grime from whatever tear ducts it had.

It made me sick to look at.

So I aimed right for it.

I fired a few shots at the head, the rounds bouncing off of the hardened skull before one managed to land right into the eye. It spewed orange-red gunk into the air before it roared loudly, throwing its arms up into the air.

Seems I landed a hit on a weak spot.

“Shoot the eye! Shoot the eye!” I cried and opened fire with everything else I had in the magazine. Everyone got the picture and joined me in shooting it now, focusing more so on the head than the body.

The creature lumbered and swug his fists around, roaring in anger as he pounded the steel floor that kept us from falling several stories down into the lava pits down below.

The platform shook and we all stumbled, the entire tower itself acted like there was a lot of strain on it.

Up above, my attention had been drawn to another gunfight. High above I saw a group of individuals fighting off a Tyrant?

The platforms trembled and the tower shook, as explosions from even higher up sounded, and a loud alarm sounded throughout the facility.

**“Core Self Destruct Sequence, Initiated.”**

Well if that ain’t the cherry on top of the shit sundae.

Another explosion and I found myself sliding to the right, towards Cindy who had stumbled into the wall.

The platform we were on were shaking and coming apart at the seams, bolts and nuts popped off like bullets and ricocheting off of the walls, even hitting the giant brute of a monster and injuring him far more then we had.

The platform gave way and we fell down one level, slamming into another platform as the ones above followed after us.

“FUCKING SCATTER!”

I grabbed onto Cindy and yanked her away, pulling her off of the platform and towards a door down a hall adjacent to the platform.

Everyone else followed suit, but heading their own ways as more platforms came crashing down from above, eventually squashing the monster and sending everything colliding to the lava pit down below.

Cindy and I watched for a brief moment, as the mutant was completely submerged and burned alive by the intense magma.

The core still stood though, but the alarm kept blaring loudly.

“We gotta get out of here!” Kevin yelled. “Everyone, find a way outside to the surface! This place is going to blow!”

Guess Cindy and I were stuck together, not the worst duo though, if I was being honest.

I took Cindy’s hand and led her away as more explosions rocked the facility’s foundations, leaving us with little choice but to abandon the others in search of safety elsewhere.

Our path led us down some twisting halls and stairways that led up and down, all through the damn lab we had found ourselves buried in. I wasn’t going to be buried alive down here, not if I could help it!

“Up this way!” I ran faster down a path with Cindy closing in behind. I cleared us a path with my handgun, bringing down whatever undead monster stood in our way to the exit.

Which wasn’t exactly close by, but I was hopeful that our path would take us somewhere safe.

Further up we had gone before reaching a large loading area, full of shipping crates and containers marked with Umbrella’s logo on it. A few bodies here and there, and a passageway off to the side led off somewhere.

We paused for a moment to catch our breath.

I was sweating like a stuck pig, from head to toe my whole body ached, burned, but it didn’t stop me from focusing on Cindy for a moment.

Still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact she looked the way she did.

_ Not gonna get used to her tits being that big, I swear. _

“W-where do we go? T-the others...” Cindy stammered out as gunshots sounded from nearby, automatic gunfire.

I spat out a curse and raised my gun, glaring out ahead towards where the gunfire was coming from. “We have to get out of this damn facility, back up to the surface, the others will meet us up there, I’m sure of it.”

I had no way of knowing, but it was nice to be hopeful even in this situation.

“Fucking bullshit, the whole lot of this.” I lowered my gun and looked around the area we were in, trying to discern the best way out. There were lots of stairs, lots of passageways and hallways. “Let’s rock n roll and get moving, we gotta find a way out of here before something bad finds us.”

I grabbed her by the hand and led her away, heading towards the stairs going up.

“W-wait!” Cindy started, but I kept moving.

“We can talk and run, let’s just keep moving!” I told her as we made it up to the next floor, where more storage for shit was.

The layout of this place was so damn confusing.

“D-Dutch!”

Something was in here!

I led her to an area near some storage crates before taking cover, I heard something nearby, but I couldn’t figure out what it was to save my life.

I turned to Cindy and saw her behind me, leaning against the storage container as I gathered my thoughts.

_ What the hell was that thing back there, that wasn’t a regular T-Virus mutation, not by a long shot. _ It was huge, a hulking mass of flesh and muscle! The T-Virus didn’t regularly do that kind of shit, so what…

“I k-know who you really are!” Cindy drew my attention to her, and I tilted my head in her direction.

Who I really was? “I’m sorry?” How could she possibly kno-

“You’re Dutch Landown, right?” I stared at Cindy for a brief moment.

_ How does she know my full name? _ “Wait, how do you-?”

“You’re from the south, you’re a gun collector, and you have a twin sister too, Dixie, right? You call her Dix.” She went on, and I was left wide eyed at her.

_ She knows about my sister? What the fuck!? _ “Why’re you telling me this, how the fuck…?”

“You’re not going to believe me, but it’s true.” She returned my stare with her own, green eyes penetrating my own weakly shielded one. “This is… g-gonna be kinda hard to explain.”

She took a deep breath, and began.

“You saved my life more than once, Dutch. Back at J’s Bar… the bomb at main street, and Apple Inn…” She looked away after mentioning the inn. Her cheeks had a hint of red on them, but she didn’t let that stop her from continuing, “You told me that something weird was happening, and to tell you this when I met you again.”

_ Wait… _ my mind was firing on all burners trying to figure out how she possibly knew my name, but also struggling to discern what she meant by me saving her life that many times. I wasn’t here during the bar fiasco, I was out for who knows how long while the city fell apart around me, after my wreck.

“You also told me to warn you about something...” Cindy added next, finally looking back to me, but her blush still remained. “You said it was called Project Titan… then you ran off.”

Project Titan? That didn’t sound like anything I knew about with Resident Evil, Project Titan didn’t come to mind, and I had told her that? What kind of Doctor Who shit was I dealing with here?

A distant roar shocked us back to the present, and I aimed my handgun around, scanning for anything that may have wanted to come at us.

I wasn’t focused as much as I should have been.

Crashing through the nearby containers, smashing past them and roaring as loud as his lungs would allow was the only beast I knew capable of such a thing.

Birkin.


	9. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go wonky for Dutch as he eventually finds his way out of the NEST and back above ground, and into the cold night air of Raccoon City. Sadly that's not all that's waiting for him, as an old acquaintance returns, albeit a bit different.

Birkin didn’t like bullets, but who did?

They also didn’t seem to affect him much when it came to actually hurting him, or they did and it just pissed him off.

I swear, you make someone angry and they just keep getting-

**_BANG BANG_ **

-faster and faster.

“Fuck off Birkin!” I turned slightly, angling my gun to try and fire on his legs, his knees to knock him down. But it didn’t seem to affect him, or if it did he was regenerating too fast for my bullets to cause any effect.

“I hate this! I just want it to end!” Cindy yelled as she followed close behind me, no other choice but to get chased as I was.

Birkin had mutated last I saw him, and now he was bigger, the eye on his shoulder had grown in size and more eyes joined him, and he was just… pure roid rage, eager to kill any and all in his way.

Sadly we were in that category.

I led Cindy where my gut was telling me, which was straight ahead of us towards a large security door someone had thankfully left open. We ran for the door, escaping Birkin’s rage induced rampage through the storage facility.

Back where we had come from, I could all but hear the massive explosion as the core of the laboratory had exploded. The ground shook, anything even remotely loose trembled from the magnitude of the explosives.

Hopefully the others made it out safe and sound, that was probably the beginning of many, this facility had the self destruct sequence activated.

Well, the  _ core _ , but if that went off, what was to stop the rest of the facility blowing up? If it was even rigged to.

I wouldn’t doubt if it was, considering what they worked on down here.

Something flew over my head, reminding me that I was being chased by a giant biological murder machine.

Gotta love how the mind wanders, eh?

A sharp turn and the two of us ran up some metal stairs, towards another opening that was littered in corpses and carnage. Behind us, Birkin’s mass prevented him from making fine turns, so he ended up smashing through the wall with a roar of utter anger.

Even in this state, he was utterly pissed off.

“You have got some explaining to do, Cindy!” I yelled back at her as I grabbed her hand, pulling her up the steps and down the hall.

“A-about what?!” She stumbled in those heels she wore, but was able to keep pace regardless.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!” Up ahead of us, a few undead stumbled around; laboratory assistants and workers, nothing too serious. I slowed down, took aim and fired the first shot into the closest one, snapping his head back.

“Tell you what?!”

“About how you know me, my sister… all of this shit!” I added as I moved forward, clearing the hall for us to run by them. They started moving faster when they got a sight of Cindy and I, two fresh slabs of meat waiting to be eaten alive, bones stripped.

“I w-wanted to make sure you were telling the truth! It all sounded so crazy but you predicted so much, and you look d-different too!” She explained as we moved ahead, passing by a straggler and heading down another hall, hopefully out of BIrkin’s line of sight for now.

“Different?” I slid into cover in the hallway, watching the one we came from carefully. “How different?” I looked different and predicted things? What the hell.

Cindy was leaning against the wall, and she reached up to the collar of her shirt and lifted it briefly, fanning herself. Now that she did that, I noticed it was actually pretty toasty in here, I wonder why?   
  
She finally locked eyes with me, a few strands of blonde hair falling in front of her pretty green eyes. “You’re not wearing the uniform you were wearing before, your guns are different-” she paused and she looked me over, before her gaze landed upon my face, “-and you don’t have that scar either.”

_ Uniform, my guns and a scar? _ I didn’t have any scars on me, least none that were super visible or didn’t already fade away. “A scar?”

Birkin roared and we heard his heavy footfalls slam their way up the stairs; his pipe swung wildly around, hitting the wall with resounding thuds. Cindy didn’t get a chance to explain before I grabbed her and started heading down the hall again.

“Nevermind that, we have to find a way out of here, and  _ fast. _ ” I didn’t know where to go, it seemed like every game that took place down here had a different layout, and while I had some of them memorized, the path we had taken and the subsequent chaos had gotten me all confused.

I have no clue where we are.

The facility’s alarm was still going off, warning the faculty of the dangers present, and even amidst all of this chaos I could still hear Birkin’s imposing figure stomping around. The mutant was stalking us, trying to find out where we were.

We were on his shitlist.

I took Cindy’s hand and pulled her away and started down another route, trying to follow the signs to get to a way out.

A lot of them were leading me in the right direction; from what a few said, we had entered the laboratory portion of the facility, full of rooms dedicated to studying and examining, on top of manufacturing various things. Most of them were no doubt the twisted mutants like the Hunters, and Tyrants.   
  
The hallways were wide, and several carts and such were sitting around; abandoned crates on them and supplies, papers and devoured bodies. The signs pointed to a ‘lobby access‘ nearby, which hopefully meant there was an elevator nearby that would take us up to the surface. We needed to get out of here, and fast, Birkin was only  _ one _ of several mutant fucks that lurked down here in the depths of hell itself.

The doors to the lobby beckoned us and we ran inside, past a reception desk and what looked like an elevator nearby. I saw a group of zombies huddled around a body on the opposite side, along with the path hopefully leading out covered in blood stains.

I was about to run towards the elevator, exit in view at long last.

Then something slammed into my side; it all happened so suddenly, my side felt incredibly hot, pain flashed across my now white vision like a flashbang, and I felt weightless.

I was flying.

I think I heard Cindy’s scream somewhere, but it was blinded by the searing pain rushing through my body.

_ FUCK _

Was all that came to mind, the only word strong enough to accurately describe my agony.

My vision was blurred and I could barely move. My limbs cried out in pain and nausea bubbled up in my putrid guts, I felt like something was broken.

Something probably was.

I puked up iron, tasted pain in my mouth as it pooled on the floor in front of me. My eyes cleared up and I saw blood on the floor in front of me.

Ahead of me I saw Cindy was lifted up off of the floor by Birkin, the Tyrant mutant held her up by his deformed arm as something split open on his back, causing more of his lab coat to tear. I saw meaty tendrils tipped with bone like pincers protrude from his bloodied skin, like growing new appendages.

Cindy screamed and tried to get out of his grip, all but clawing at his hand and hitting him as he glared.

“Let me go! Help!” She cried, struggling as those pincers closed in.

_ I can’t let her die, fuck! _

I struggled back to my feet, the handgun still primed to go.

I don’t know where it came from, but a burst of adrenaline coursed through me, and the pain temporarily forgotten.

I darted towards the two, pushing past the agony in my legs and ribcage. I pulled out the knife I had on my belt and jumped onto the desk next to Birkin.

In a quick move I kicked off of it and launched myself upwards and onto Birkin’s right shoulder; the giant mutated eyeball that locked with me.

A flurry of gunfire rained down upon him by my hand, orange-red fluids burst forth as he roared, but not as loudly until I landed on the swollen and fleshy arm of his and slammed my fist- knife first, right into his pupil.

I emptied my handgun into him during that, and the pain and shriek that came from him so great it nearly deafened me, he flung Cindy away and I saw her hit the wall before he grabbed onto me.

“Nnng! Hands off the goods!” I swung my leg into his chest, but he didn’t even flinch. His face was contorted, mouth splitting open as his giant shoulder-eye bled and flicked about, knife still stuck inside.

His devastating roar blasted out my eardrums just about.

Shouldn’t have emptied out my handgun now, I think.

Cindy managed to stand, though she looked pretty beaten up.

“Cindy, get out of here! Head to the surface!” I yelled at her, grabbing onto Birkin’s hand and trying to pry myself free. But I couldn’t fight off his strength, he was too damn strong!

_ Wait, my other knife! _

“But what ab-”

“Just-!” I yelled and pulled out my other knife, and slashed at his thumb, cutting off a good chunk and loosening his grip on me. I fell to the floor as blood spurted from his wound and he roared, “-go! Just go! I’ll meet you on the surface!”

I darted away from his wild swipe, barely taking off my cap. He stumbled into the desk, smashing it into pieces and shocking Cindy, who took one look at me before rushing away.

I grabbed a nearby chunk of debris and tossed it his way, he turned, his gaze turning from Cindy.

_ That’s right, big guy. She’s  _ **_mine_ ** _ , not yours, so keep your eyes on me, bud. _ I thought and got back onto my feet, and I reached for my revolver.

The look he gave me was terrifying.

_ She’s mine? Don’t know why I said that but whatever works! _

I turned and rushed away, and he followed close behind me with his pipe in hand. He was faster now, pissed off like a hog in heat and ready to gore me to death.

I don’t know how I was still going, it felt like something was broken but here I was, trucking along. I had to keep moving though, have to escape and find answers.

This wasn’t just about escaping Raccoon anymore, there was so much more to this than I originally thought.

I couldn’t die until I found the answers I damn well fucking  _ deserved _ .

Birkin was close behind and he wasn’t going to let me get away as easy as last time. He was fully intent on murdering my entire being, not stopping until I was slammed into paste on the floors of his laboratory.

I blazed a path past the undead in my way down a corridor leading into some nearby offices; once belonging to low-tier employees, the dregs of the company.

An elevator nearby caught my attention, maybe another way out, or at least a reprieve from this maniac.

“Alright, let’s play a little game.” I turned and aimed my revolver, and squeezed the trigger. The bark of the 357 was loud, echoing throughout the hall as the round found purchase and slammed into his left shoulder.

I aimed lower, trying for his leg and fired; I had to trip him up or something!

The gun kicked and the round went low, slamming into his shin and tearing open his pant leg. He almost stumbled, but kept trucking after me.

_ Almost, just aim there and open fire! _

I pulled the trigger again, aiming at the same spot but higher.

Just as I turned down a different path and veered to the left, the round hit right in the center of his kneecap. The loud  _ crack _ nearly overpowered the gunshot, and caused me to cringe. He crumpled to the floor with a ground shaking thud, which gave me time to sprint towards an open elevator nearby.

I nearly tripped on my way there as pain shot up my entire left side, “g-gah!” I stumbled against the wall, almost flailing to the floor.  _ W-what the fuck… _

My body was starting to struggle against my attempts to move, pain was flashing back up like a wildfire gaining strength.

_ G-guess my second wind is up. _

I forced myself forward, regardless of the pain rushing through me, I kept moving until I fell into the elevator.

A body lay against the wall of it, holding a keycard and a handgun, I took the card and swiped it through the reader on the door.

No buttons, just a keycard reader.

The doors slammed shut, and I fell backwards.

“Fuck me.”

I scooted myself back as the elevator ventured up through the facility, and I was left alone once again.

_ I hope Cindy made her way out. _ I slammed my fist against the wall.  _ Damn it, I need answers. _

I had told her about all of this, from the moment we met in Jack’s Bar, to the main street explosion, to Apple Inn? I first woke up here in the city’s hospital, I don’t ever remember telling her my full name, or anything else for that matter.

_ But she knew everything, that’s the important thing to keep in mind. _

She knew my name, she knew shit I didn’t even do yet.

_ I have to keep a level head, and just carry on. Whatever is going on, I’ll find answers, one way or another. _

The body next to me aroused my interest, and so I leaned in for a closer look.

He sported a pretty simple looking suit, a pair of broken glasses, and his hair was at one point combed neatly. He was well dressed, had a firearm and a keycard for this elevator, so he must have been important, but not a scientist or researcher, no lab coat.

His temple sported a hole as well, dried blood.

He’s been dead for a hot minute.

But who was he?

The keycard didn’t offer much- aside from being a solid piece of black plastic, sporting Umbrella’s logo and the designation ‘A1’ on it, no name, nothing except the strip on the back for the card reader.

That didn’t tell me much of anything.

_ It must be important, if it accesses an elevator. _

The monitor up above didn’t offer me any idea of where I was going, but I was headed up, that much I knew, but to where?

Eventually the elevator stopped, and the doors slid open.

The sight of dark hallways lined with doors greeted me, but I was honestly too weak to stand up.

My energy was spent.

Something stumbled into view, another soul lost to the virus that claimed so many. I think at one point, a researcher or something, judging from their coat.

They locked one bloodied eye on me, and stumbled my way.

I wasn’t able to lift my revolver in time, I was…

_ Fuck, this is it for me. _

I could barely aim the gun, my vision too blurred from the constant fighting.

Just before he reached me, a loud gunshot rang out and a hole appeared on the front of his skull, before he dropped to the floor.

Beyond him, a blurry red and white figure approached me.

_ Shit, think I’m blacking out. _

“Well well well, who do we have here...“

* * *

I didn’t black out, but damn it all if I wasn’t close to doing so.

I was moved around and shifted in my current state until I found my vision clearing up, and I was in a random office somewhere. Save for scattered documents detailing things I didn’t quite understand, folders, office supplies and a few chairs, it was barren in here…

All except a gorgeous woman in red that looked awfully familiar.

She was standing nearby, looking through a manilla folder. I watched her pace back and forth beside me, flicking through the contents before her gaze zeroed in on me.

It was  _ the _ Ada Wong, in the flesh, secret spy for Umbrella’s rival company and Leon’s love interest.

“Finally awake? You were pretty banged up, glad to see you’re not dead.” She spoke to me, standing with her side facing me. “Dutch.”

I couldn’t get too good a look, but I could see her wearing the iconic red dress of hers underneath a large overcoat, with the black leggings and her handgun holstered. She was as gorgeous as her in-game character, albeit she was the  _ real deal _ , so she was an absolute  _ banger _ .

Same with the other girls, honestly.

I tried to sit up, but my ribcage prevented that, at least for now, anyway.

“Uh, yeah.” I huffed and laid back down, and soon discovered my weapons were missing in action, all of my shit was gone actually, save for my pants.

I paused when something hit me.

_ Wait, she knows my name? _

My shirt and jacket were gone, only my bandaged up chest was visible.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” My eyes gazing at her form must have caught her attention, and I found myself blushing lightly. “Now what are you doing down here, hmm?”

“Uh… nothing really.” I replied, and slowly moved myself back up into a sitting position. It stung like hell, but whatever she used on me was starting to take effect, hopefully healing me to where I could start moving again. “I was trying to find a way out of the city and got lost.”

She didn’t give me much of a look except to eyeball me briefly, then she shut the folder and tossed it aside onto a nearby desk before crossing her arms, then she faced me finally.

My mind subsequently exploded.

Ada Wong was a fierce agent for the underground bio-weapons trade, a slim figure, with a dangerously attractive personality and a body to  _ slay. _

She looked exactly like how I imagined, but once she undid her coat buttons and revealed her thin dress underneath, I realized how different this world was.

Specifically, my eyes zeroed in on her chest, first and foremost; Ada Wong was a slim and strong woman, yet my eyes seemed to be deceiving me. Instead of the modest cup size she has had for decades in the universe, she was sporting a cup size closer to what Cindy has; Double-D cups, which was  _ utterly _ shocking to see on her usually slim and athletic figure.

I mean, she was still incredibly hot; an absolute banger of a girl, but damn was I not expecting this.

Not unwelcome either, I always wondered how she’d look with bigger tits, and from how tight that dress was around those bountiful mounds of titflesh… I could only  _ wonder. _

She chuckled and approached me, and nerves shot up through my system.

What was going on here?

“I’ve been wondering when I was going to run into you again.” She stopped short of actually touching me, but leaned in close before dropping her sunglasses briefly, allowing me a good look at her pretty light brown eyes. “I figured you would have been long gone by now.”

“Ya don’t say? Well, I have a funny way of doing things.” I mentioned and attempted to stand, but it was difficult. “I got chased down here by a Tyrant, sadly, so my plans of escape are kind of  _ goofed _ right now.” What she said finally hit me as well, ‘again’. “Also  _ again? _ ”

“This isn’t our first meeting.” She told me, leaning in close to where I could smell faint perfume on her. Ada was leaning enough to where I could almost see down her coat and her dress, into the crevice of her breasts, I could almost make out the skin tight bra she wore underneath. “In fact, this is one of  _ many _ we’ve had _. _ ”

I wasn’t used to girls acting this way towards me, let alone a woman like Ada.

I must have gotten a lucky streak somehow landing in this world, or something.

After I was able to get onto my feet, I checked myself again to make sure there was nothing amiss. Aside from my gear being taken off and set off to the side, nothing was really wrong with me. Took that as a good sign and gathered up my stuff; sucks about my shirt though, my jacket managed to survive the fighting, so I just put that back on and grabbed my weapons and radio, strapping them on easily.

“One of many?” I couldn’t help but find myself asking her. First Cindy, and now her? Did I gain the ability to travel between timelines or something? “That’s what someone else told me.”

“You get around a lot, Landown.” She explained to me before looking back down the hall, where to? I had no clue. “I’m surprised I ran into you down here, seems you were telling the truth about before.”

“Yeah well… you get around when you’re chased by massive fucking mutants, like Birkin.” I let out a huge sigh, I honestly felt so tired of trying to play the stupid guy, and she was a smart woman so why hide it? I looked around before arming myself again, this time with my revolver.

“Birkin is on the loose?” She looked back towards me.

“Aye, he is, and out for blood, specifically  _ mine _ cause I may or may  _ not _ have pissed him off.” I sniffled and shrugged, before I focused on something else on my mind. “So we meet again? When did we meet the first time? I’m still confused on that part.”

She chuckled and we started to move, heading down out of the office space I had woken up in and out into the hall. “We met moments before Raccoon fell, and you informed me about the Virus and what it was I was searching for.”

The halls were abandoned, only blood stained the walls. The offices were empty, devoid of personnel and desks left in a hurry, the failed evacuation was evident everywhere.

“I genuinely don’t remember.” That only told me more, there was some time fuckery going on here, something I hadn’t done  _ yet _ was revealing itself to me now. Does that mean I’m going to go back in time at some point and relive this fucking nightmare all over again?

“You explained it as… ‘time fuckery’, your own words of course.” Ada chuckled and I had to take a moment.

Definitely time fuckery.

“Sounds about right, fuck me.” I shook my head. “This whole thing doesn’t make sense.”

“It was strange when you approached me as you did, I almost killed you before you explained yourself.” Ada’s stride was purposeful, and she had a mission, even with how we were now she was still on it. “A time traveler was what you told me, but that still sounds so difficult to believe, and yet here you are.”

“What makes you think I was telling you the truth?” I asked her.

She gave me a look, and her eyes went from my face down to my feet, and back up. “I doubt you’d dump all the gear you had before for what you’re wearing now.” She hummed.

“I could still be bullshitting ya, I could be my own twin or some shit like that.” I offered, and she just smiled.

“I have a good eye for people, and I can tell you’re not lying to me.” Ada’s posture was relaxed, but her eyes were focused as we walked. “I don’t know why this is going on, or why you chose to aid in, but regardless, I owe you  _ substantially- _ ”

I just waved her off before she could continue. “I don’t like debts, honestly. I supposedly gave you info, and you bandaged me up, consider us even, yeah?” I told her, offering my fist to her.

She smiled and bumped hers against mine, and we continued onward.

“So are we a team from here on out? Or are you gonna bounce once you find what it is you’re looking for?” I decided to push for some information, maybe she knew more than she let on. I knew her character, how she acted and what she was like.

Odds are any sort of comradery between us wasn’t going to last very long, and this was only for her benefit in searching for information on the T-Virus for her employer.

“For now, I’ll assist you. You want out of here, and I need to gather information, and luckily for you, both happen to be in the same direction.” The smile she gave me could melt hearts. “You help me, I help you, sound good?”

“Good as can be, I suppose.” I nodded as I readjusted my jacket, zipping it up halfway. “I want out of this damn place, there’s a bed calling me and it’s several dozen miles away from this hellhole.”

Ada and I would continue through the laboratory, passing by empty lab rooms, and dozens of corpses left behind by Birkin and the subsequent undead menace.

I still couldn’t believe that we were unable to find anyone down here, alive that is. Everyone had been mauled to death by the monsters set free, and were turned into monsters themselves before feasting on their coworkers.

Flashlights searched the darker areas, but we couldn’t find anyone or anything worth taking with us, not bullets, guns, keycards, nothing.

“So you’re looking for information on the bioweapons Umbrella’s developing, right?” I kept my revolver level with the path ahead, and eyed our corners carefully, I didn’t want us to get caught off guard. “I’m assuming that’s your intention here.”

“You asked me the same question when we met, it’s how I ended up here.” Ada nodded slowly. “But you’re correct.”

“I’m surprised you’re so forthcoming with this information, considering you’re a spy, and I know  _ way _ too much to be comfortable.” It was rather strange that she was okay with this. I knew her whole life’s story- what the developers and writers decided to release about her, anyway. “Why do you trust me?”

“It’s mutually beneficial for both of us to help one another, don’t you agree?” Ada asked me as we rounded a corner and proceeded up some stairs. “Besides… there’s something about you I kind of like, a trustworthy look in your eyes.” She seemed to be pondering this whole thing herself, why she was trusting me when I knew so much about her and this situation. “Maybe I’m curious to see what else you know.”

“I know more than I care to admit.”

I shouldn’t be saying these things, but she was good at pulling stuff out of me.

Then again I was kind of focused on other things at the moment, namely her  _ ass _ and watching her hips sway from side to side.

“The information you want is in this lab, but having it… releasing this kind of shit out into the world?” I shook my head. “It won’t end well for anyone, and it’ll only spell disaster.”

“So you’ve told me.” Ada smiled and snapped her fingers, and looked back at me, pointing her finger in my direction. “I’ve been paid to do this job, and I intend on finishing it… you don’t intend on stopping me, do you?”

_ I would if I could, but you clearly outmatch me in strength and skill alone. _ There was no way I could beat her, so I just looked out ahead and kept moving. “Let’s just keep moving, yeah?”

We eventually came to a fork, a path leading right and one going up and left, towards some elevators.

Ada stopped, and turned to me.

“Head down that path, it’ll take you to the facility’s train depot, which leads outside.” She explained, and I looked down the path.

I saw a couple of undead, but nothing else, along with a sign that detailed it was the train depot, and storage rooms.

“Huh, well, thanks a bunch fo-” I turned back around to her, only to find she was gone.

Like the agent she was.

_ Mutually beneficial, I guess, but nothing really happened. _

I shrugged and ventured down the path leading out, easily dispatching the undead in my way with a few well placed gunshots, and I started jogging forward.

The hall got wider the further I went, and I passed by massive steel doors pleading to storage from trains bringing in cargo, god only knows what they shipped in and out of here.

Before long I arrived at a massive elevator and a room full of cargo, forklifts and transport trucks, and up above, high above the terminal I saw the way out.

“Sweet freedom is mine.” I stuck my tongue out and ran towards the ladder leading up.

The elevator was for the train, which was used to move between the underground tunnels between labs I assumed. This one was probably connected to another one somewhere, and on top of that, the rails on the outside of the facility on the ground level led to the facilities out in the forest.

The elevator was already on the surface floor, so someone either moved it recently, or it was left that way before NEST fell.

Either way, it’s freedom.

Foot on the ladder, and hands grabbing on, I holstered my guns and started climbing up.

“Almost there, just… several dozen feet and I’m home free.”

Stupid tyrant chasing me down here, fucking hell.

_ Stupid Cathy fucking me over to begin with, cunt. _

I shook my head and kept moving up, focusing my efforts on escape once again.

My radio buzzed after a moment, and a voice came through.  _ “C-Command, this is Goblin-6.” _

Wait, that was the USS member HUNK left behind, she’s still-

_ “I m-managed to make it to the surface with a sample of the G-Virus.” _

I blinked, she survived and got a fucking sample? How in the hell…

Once I climbed up to the surface level elevator, I made my way onto the platform where the train was still sitting and idling, someone had started the train up!

Who the fuck.   
  


Nearby, I saw someone in a black USS uniform hunched over near the train, carrying a large silver case and a handgun. They struggled to climb into the train itself, and it wasn’t until they glanced my way that they slipped and fell onto the ground.

Is that her?!

“Holy shit.”

I pulled out my revolver, and approached the USS soldier, who scrambled to grab the case.

“S-stay back! I’m warning you!”

She cried, and pointed her handgun my way. I froze, but I didn’t back down either.

Her helmet was gone, probably lost in whatever scuffle she got into, exposing dark brown hair cut short, and pretty green eyes. She was bleeding from a wound on her forehead, causing one eye to shut, but otherwise she was still moving.

“I-I’m not gonna die here!” She tried pulling the trigger, and for a moment I thought I was going to get another bullet in me.

Her slide locked back, it was empty.

As she started to fumble with the magazine, I said, “look, I’m not here to fuck with you or anything, okay?” Her magazine fell to the floor, and her shaky hand tried to grab another from her vest. “Yo!” I snapped my fingers, drawing her attention, “you listenin’?”

That seemed to get her to calm down. Hopefully she’d realize I could have killed her by now, and I didn’t.

What are the odds that I’d run into her here of all places?

Seems like she wasn’t the only one either.

“You’re still kicking? I’m surprised.”

Off to my right, I saw Hawkeye approaching, equally as beaten up as I and Goblin were. Her uniform was completely fucked up and she had abandoned the jacket - probably destroyed beyond repair, keeping only her vest and bloodied undershirt. Her M4 was gone as well, leaving her with only a handgun like the other woman.

“Yeah, well… I’m hard to kill.” I told her and accentuated the end of that statement with a finger.

“W-who are-?” Goblin started, but I waved it off.

“I’m Dutch, our colorful friend here is uh… an  _ associate _ of mine-”

“Acquaintance.”

“-yes that, and I don’t know about you two, but I  _ really _ want to get the hell out of here, so if you don’t mind.” I approached Goblin, and offered a hand to her.

She recoiled at first, but once she was able to calm down, she took my hand and I helped her stand and up onto the train’s side steps that led to the door inside.

“What say we get out of here, yeah?” I asked her, and she nodded.

The three of us didn’t waste time climbing on board the train, and inside of it. Goblin had retrieved the case - no doubt holding the G-Virus inside of it, Hawkeye had decided to sit down inside, and I followed her with Goblin.

We all sat by ourselves as the train was starting up, and the doors were opening.

“Fuck this place.” I let my gun drop to the floor and wiped my brow, and pushed my hair back. I felt so dirty, greasy, and so goddamn tired. “Stupid fucking virus.” I looked over to Hawkeye, who was looking through a PDA. “You find what you were looking for?”

A glance towards me, and she nodded before stuffing her device back into her vest. “You were right, the city is being torn apart by this virus… and it is far more dangerous than I could have thought.”

“Hawk, if this shit wasn’t contained to the city” I started, as the implications of a worldwide outbreak came to mind, I shuddered. “The world would be  _ fucked _ way more than it already is.”

Resident Evil Extinction and the following live action delved into that possibility, and it was terrifying, but interesting. It’s what I loved watching, playing, and reading, apocalyptic scenarios intrigued me, but I never thought I’d be living one.

The train jostled us, and we started to move at last.

I allowed myself a moment to relax, letting my weariness take over for a brief moment.

I wasn’t any closer to finding answers, but what Ada told me made me think, same with Cindy. The both of them knew who I was, and said I had met them  _ before _ the city fell, and with what Hawkeye had told me when we first met, on top of everything else that happened, what with HUNK’s team being attacked and all that…

I was hopping across the timeline somehow, jumping from one point to another without even realizing it. But how was I doing it? What the fuck was causing this to happen, and for what reason?

“Troubled?” Hawkeye asked me and leaned forward, her weary gaze meeting my own.

She was dirtied from her fights, and I couldn’t help but find her dirty and worn appearance attractive, especially with how it showed off her muscles, the slight glistening sheen across her shoulders and biceps.

_ Christ. _

“Just deep in thought, I guess.” I told her and looked towards Goblin, who was holding the case to her as if it were a lifeline. “Trying to figure out what’s going on, and  _ why _ it’s happening to me.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing I can easily explain. Most I can say is… well… time fuckery, I guess, vague as that is.” How the fuck could I explain it?

The train slammed into something, and I wasn’t able to explain anything as the wheels screeched, and the whole damn engine shook. We were thrown forward from the force, and slammed against the front before we came to a stop.

We all ended up in a pile of limbs.

“G-gah, fuck...” I grumbled, and found myself buried under Hawkeye. It took me a second to realize  _ how _ we landed, and when it did, my eyes widened.

I found that juicy ass of hers inches away from my face.

“A-ahh… s-shit.” She grumbled as Goblin shuffled on my right side, having landed next to us. “What the hell…?”

She climbed off me without a second word, not even acknowledging what happened. I cleared my throat and decided to move on, those thoughts were better left for another day, preferably when I had the energy to be horny.

When I got onto my feet again and approached the front window, it looked like we ended up out in the forest of Raccoon, the Arklay Woods. But the train had rammed into something, and knocked us off the tracks. A closer look revealed a pickup truck had done it, alongside some other cars blocking the route.

“Shit, we hit a snarl of cars.” I pulled out my handgun and approached the door, before opening it up.

The fresh cool air of the mountains hit me, and I had never felt more refreshed in my life to be outside again.

The road we were on was a dirt road, and a few cars had taken this route and parted on the tracks, and when the train hit them, it knocked them all off to the side and derailed us. We didn’t go too fast, so we didn’t suffer too bad a hit.

Though something did grab my attention.

The pickup truck we smashed into, that was sitting nearby…

That was the truck Cathy had fucking stolen from me.

“Son of a bitch.”

I jumped off without even thinking, landing on the ground and storming towards the truck. I ripped open the passenger side door, and saw an empty cab, but the back was still completely full of the loot we had stolen, all of the bags, everything…

She was nowhere to be found though, and she left all of the loot, even the guns?

Something was right, in fact… all of these cars were just abandoned here, with luggage and shit left in them.

I looked around and noticed a lot of vehicles, and no bodies to be seen.

Hawkeye stepped out, alongside Goblin, who was looking a little bit better than before.

I saw Hawkeye’s eyes widen, and she pointed her handgun. “Behind you!”

I should have fucking figured.

I whirled around as fast as I could and jumped away, moments before a massive limb came crashing down on top of the truck’s cab, smashing it in and sending debris flying.

Luck was on my side as I skidded to a stop near one of the other cars, and I slid over the hood and onto the other side. My revolvers came out, and I pointed them both at whatever was that attacked me, and missed.

I don’t know what the fuck it was… my eyes tried to discern its shape, it’s sheer mass that was engulfed by tangled roots and bark, but from what I could tell, dozens of bodies made up its overall ‘form’, corpses lashed and fused together to form this ungodly being.

Vines swooped in front above, past trees, over the cars, forming these massive spiked limbs that crushed anything it decided to wrap around. I didn’t see any eyes, or a face, only a huge flower in the middle of it, with closed petals forming the massive center.

It was a giant fucking  _ plant. _

“What in the goddamn...“ I breathed as Hawkeye fired a shot at the thing. The bullet hit its mark, causing one of its limbs to pull back…

It shot forward, smashing through a car and almost hitting both Goblin and Hawkeye, but it thankfully missed and the duo were able to jump down in time to escape the strike, but the train… it was made of industrial forged steel and iron, but it suffered a  _ dent _ from that hit!

“Hawk! Goblin!” I cried out as they took cover near an abandoned ambulance, and I looked back towards the plant. “Just what in the  _ fuck _ are you?!”

The creature turned to ‘face me’ and I saw it petals shifting. A deep humming sound came from it, almost like a  _ laugh _ as its body shook with each hum, rising and falling. The petals moved out of the way, shifting until the flower seemingly blossomed and revealed its center.

I saw another body, attached via vines and tubes made up from organic material grown by the plant monster, which kept the  _ fused _ body in place. Pulsations moved along the vines, like arteries moving blood through the body.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the nude female body it had formed at the center, the vines were attached into the skin like needles, two large tube like vines crawled up the woman’s body and to her large breasts, attaching themselves to her nipples where they were pumping something either into or  _ from _ them, and another larger one had been shoved between her legs and up into her bits.

My eyes scanned her body, naked as it was, it wasn’t until she opened her eyes that I realized what became of my partner in crime...

This monster was Cathy.

“Hello, Dutch.”

_ Oh fuck me. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, please leave some comments, I'd love to hear your thoughts!


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